It's possible to disagree without being disagreeable. Throwing mud detracts from the actual issue under discussion. Exchanging insults makes the media happy as it gives them some human drama to report on rather than
dry technical details on the
pros/cons on some policy
direction. TV especially loves human conflict stories
but doesn't do well on
abstract ideas.

Here at theTyee you can see how (in)effective the exchange of personal insults amongst the commentators is on convincing others of the merits of their point of view.

Rafe has it more or less right (and I don't often agree with him). The NDP is not being sufficiently aggressive in the legislature, and it is not getting the issues which are potentially most damaging to the government in the headlines.

That said, Carole James' presentation of herself as a nice, conciliatory woman worked very well during the election - she came across as the anti-Gord, which was the right thing to do at the time.

A legislative caucus, however, can't afford to behave that way otherwise it will slip into irrelevance. James needs to release the proverbial hounds, and they need to be going for the jugular. If the caucus can demonstrate it's passion and ability, while she maintains the pose of a stateswoman, the party will be in a great position.

What's in it for Carole James to play the beeyotch right now, especially if that is not her normal aspect? The gov't is on a huge roll, signing longterm contracts with group after group. To attack the govt at its strongest and most fortified is poor strategy. Kick them when they're DOWN -- that's politics baby.

Pictures of Campbell remind of those political cartoons and caricatures of the fat industrialists and politicians of the 19th century, the apogee of such commentary..........

It's possible to disagree without being disagreeable

TGhey are supposed to be disagreable for God's sake! Have you never attended a meeting where hard divisions of opinion divide people along very fundamental, gut issues of what's right and what's wrong?

What you don't understand is this - If I were, God forbid, the Premier and had one wish from Alladin it would be this - Please give me a nice, peaceful House where no raises there voice or uses the immunity of the house to stick the knofe in where it huts the most.

You remark betrays you as either naive or a Campbell Liberal - or both!

The media conglomerates either ignore or vilify the NDP. Let's not forget the double standard. NDP government deficits - "very very bad" with matching screaming headlines. Conservative/Liberal deficits - ignored.

The NDP need to find a way around the media.

What a balance... A nice Lady with no teeth, and a convicted drug abuser. One will help you, by been a nice person, the other a drunk, a thief, and a lout. I'll lean to the nice person, everytime. Why have we forgotten what gordo has done to us all these years. When are the court cases coming up? His relative the thief, and Vasi and Virk the thieves from within. Wake up BC before he sells it off completely.

Too true! If Carole James began "asserting" herself, I would bet money that she would be labelled "exhibitionist" rather than "forceful" or "persuasive". Sorry Rafe! You may be right intellectually, but we need a good, large circulation "socialist" rag out there....

Besides, the public attention span dictates that no one listens to anything (unless it's REALLY juicy) much before an election is imminent. And now that we know when the next election is going to be, we can safely fall asleep until, say, Feb. 2009

Rafe is spot on. As for Carole, she's happy believing "being nice" is all there is to the job. I've been saying for years that the NDP made a very poor choice when they elected her leader. With her at the helm the NDP will never form a government. Under her leadership labour has been told to take a hike, she ignores the "natural" constituents of a social democratic party, she's too busy believing that she is "Mrs. Premier". She ignores far too many issues and has completely abandoned many of the long-held policies of the party. The sooner the party dumps her the better. Let's hope it's soon and that we have a real opposition in the near future.

In Prince George we have had seven disabled individuals commit suicide, in the past six years, over our heartless treatment by the Provincial Government. Why on god's earth has Carole James not attacked the Liberals as powerfully as they did over the deaths in the Ministry of Family and Children? I once supported this party as I believed that it was the only option against the neoliberal cruelty of the Campbell Liberals. Her lack of support shows us just how much she really cares about us.If you want the support of the people start representing those in need instead of looking for photo ops!!!

Carole James is a wet noodle, a product of a divided and inept NDP! Being nice will not win any votes. In opposition you oppose.

Look at RAV, now almost $1.5 billion over the original budget, bankrupting local businesses, and now the leading constractor has been fired, but nary a word from the NDP.

Fast Ferries sunk the NDP and RAV should do the same for Mr. Campbell, but now, raising issues with RAV will cast a dark cloud over the Millennium Line, Glen Clark's other transportation fuasco. The NDP will not debate it, just sweep it under the rug for fear of upsetting skeletons in the closet.

James just has to go, she is way out of her leaugue and the next election will neuter the NDP. They are just yesterdays bunch of inept and 3rd rate politicians who always will be in second place. As Rafe Mair said, "you do not have to be a 10 in politics to win, but only a 3 if everyone else is a 2". The NDP are a 1!

The Liberals are no better, a bunch of 'slick Willies', and confidence tricksters who are selling off large portions of BC to their corporate cronies. God help us from the lot of them.

The biggest problem of the NDP, both at the provincial and federal levels, is that the leadership, and I don't mean the leaders, but the backroom boys who pull the strings and give the orders, decided that the present economic theory and system are untouchable and so they are snapping at the edges and effects, without daring to go after the causes.

Something like the Democrats in the States, completely toothless and without any guts to go after their government with facts and figures, showing that they're killing the country and the world, with their criminal theories.

The NDP has tons of facts, figures and materials to use and make headlines, the party has some excellent and hard working MLAs, in contrast to the deadbeats we had here on the Liberal side, but they're held back by some mysterious forces.

Ditto here.

Ed Deak, Big Lake.

I think Rafe is a tad expired on this. Seldom does an opposition have a track record like the decade of the 90’s to answer to as Carole James does, Rafe certainly never faced that. And most BC opposition caucuses are seldom dealing with a Government that is throwing out the kind money Campbell has been of late.

More importantly is that nobody likes a bitchy women, if Carole James comes across bitchy you can bet we will see that nice smiling Carole Taylor a whole lot more often. Funny thing about that Carole Taylor, you just can’t help but to like her.

Rafe's point is well made and switek is muddying the water with the "bitchy women" argument. Both Taylor and James are intelligent women with great credibility. The media will do what it will do and all we can hope for is that the generation of students currently in school have been well taught by the cynical teachers who have now had a decade of political B.S. from both sides. They've learned when to say enough! Perhaps their students will have learned that lesson, too.

I think maybe she is still gunshy from that mla raise fiasco... and rightly so.

either way, she and the ndp are going to have to fight canwest global on canwest global turf. without his media bubble and subsequent information control campbell will probably crash in a hurry.

the blitz must not be against the campbell government as much as a demonstration of media complicity in preventing the people of bc from being kept abreast of campbell's malfeasance.

carole must send her pitbulls against campbell's protective media.

An objective newspaper wont cut it, james must rely on cbc, at the same time attacking those within the cbc who are complicit in its corruption... they are easy to spot.

it is amazing that the ndp, provincial and federal, hasnt taken up the defense of the cbc as one of its main objectives. After all, without the cbc everything that the ndp stands for will be lost along with this country.

we all know that the cbc is sqarely in harpers/campbell's sights at this very moment, and precisely because of that fact.

in regard to her inaction, there is little doubt that at some point people will start wondering out loud whether carole james isnt playing to lose. hopefully she manages to get a good fight going before then.

tks,
rjm

Rick W. sez "we need a good, large circulation "socialist" rag out there...."

Thank you Rick, I have been saying this as long as I can remember!

A couple of polls show the NDP lower than the Liberals, but still show James higher than Gordo.

So up pops Rafe with an article about how soft James is , complete with a picture of Gordo. I do agree with the comment that the back room boys often screw up the real elected folks.
Maybe Dix is such a effective person because he used to be in the back room.
Another comment was how the province is rolling in money right now. So it's a poor time to attack. Let's not forget where the money is coming from, it's from our resources, and our pockets. A lot of contracts were signed. Any union that was stuck with zero zero and zero complete with threats and sees a Billion dollars hanging out there as bonuses would be dumb to say no. Is that James fault well I sort of doubt it. The media tried their hardest to inflame the teachers bargaining. The media including has beens like Rafe likes conflict as it means easier way to write stories. If the media wants stories go dig up some of the stuff that's going on with the present governemt. Like why does a Deputy Minister walk away and her own minister claims not to have heard about it.
When James commented she was being shrill. When Gordo and his brother in law did a trip to Europe to see health care, he did it on our dollar. Did he report in when he came back no. James wanted to know why not and was ignored. maybe if she reached over and punched him out folks like Rafe would think she was just great. I doubt she will ever be chanregd with driving drunk and convicted. A hounorable person would have stepped aside but not Gordo, he will have to be dragged away from power.

But that's like saying "income tax refund". We all KNOW it's our own money, but it makes us feel good to get it just the same, and we don't thnk any more of it.

There is the perception of good times out there (in good part because the Liberal government kept advertising telling us so), even though we keep hearing some disconcerting snippets of news about layoffs, soft markets, and slowdowns (like 3,000 BC forestry workers laid off that made page 10 or so). But we'be just bought a house, and please dear god, let me unload before the bubble bursts..........don't rock the boat.

Politics is worth getting heated about... after all, too much depends on decisions made in the Leg to always agreeably disagree. We need a good scrap to get the NDP back on track!

Right on Rafe!

Vote Green, well that will be the election call of many when faced with Carole james in 2009! The NDP has turned into a self righteous bunch of politcally correct nattering nabobs. So afraid to do the right thing, they continue to squander precious public attention doing nothing.

It's time to dump James and dump her quick because she will lead the NDP into 20 years of political wilderness!

So Carole has better polling numbers than Quisling Campbell, well that means she is only a 1 compared to a 0! God help us all!

Hobson's choice.

The unions have all fallen for the "signing bonus" bait and swallowed long term contracts. This leaves them no way to go back to the well for years and years.

I noted that local gasoline prices increased by 11% in my town the day after Jinny Sims was lauding a 16% deal over 5 YEARS!!! Anyone that signs a 5 year deal in this uncertain economy is nuts!!

Oil could be two or three hundred dollars a barrel in 5 years time.

Meanwhile Gordo can now do as he wishes with impunity and Carol whatshername can continue to be the babe in the political woods.

IMHO B.C needs a real opposition party very badly. Not a flakey Green party or a whatever-the-hell-it-has-become NDP, but a party that really keeps Gordo in check for all of our sakes.

The NDP needs to turn up the thermostat in the legislature and elect a new leader with some cojones or face extinction.

Umslopogaas wrote:

True, the 'opposition party' has the job to oppose. Sadly you put the Greens down as 'flakey' yet they have neither been opposition nor government, so how can you know?

The NDP cannot heat anything up here in BC, just like they cannot get traction in Ontario provincially. The electorate has learned that NDPers cannot be trusted with the purse strings and the federal-provicial connections are too strong to ignore. I do not envision the NDP attaining governance so long as these perceptions remain.

Can any Party be trusted with the so called "purse strings". This is an inane propaganda issue, trying to divert attention from the facts. Campbell blew over $4. billion from the public purse in his first weeks in office and has been busy giving away the province ever since. Is this what's called "fiscal responsibility", or the actions of that drunk buffoon Klein?

Since the Reform Party, disguised and BC Libs and Conservatives, came into power, all we can see are huge giveaways to the multinational corporate mafia, who already are in dictatorial position to screw everybody for their last drop of blood.

Harper is only waiting for majority to sell the whole country for peanuts and directorships. Ditto Campbell, who's been selling everything to "foreign investors" to put them under NAFTA and WTO protection from re-nationalization.

The problem is that the backroom boys of the NDP are to chicken to point out the obvious facts, so they can stay "centre".

Ed Deak, Big Lake.

I'm certainly relieved that Jame's is higher than Gordo in the polls. One hell of an achievement that, eh. :-) (Though my recollection is that recent polls indicate the NDP is actually below the NeoconLibs itself. I mean, what's to really hate about the woman. She's mostly just a non-entity.)

As for the problems of the NDP, in my wee view, they are rooted in the politics of opportunism, otherwise known as going with the flow. The principle of, "Line of least resistance lead me on." carried to its absurd sell-out of all principles extreme. Which is the same virus afflicting the, what we used to call, "The Labour Movement", now more accurately to be described as "The Labour Bureaucrat Movement".

"The Left" per se has lost its way, in my view. And that in turn is both a reflection of and a partial driving element in the reality that parallels it, being "the nation" has lost its way, "Canadian democracy" has lost its way, and the capitalist "economic system" has lost its way-, the latter at least forward.

There is an entire, across the board crisis emerging in Canadian life, wallowing like a pig in muck, awaiting the emergence of a particular "Will" amongst the populace at large, still themselves waiting for a miracle which only they themselves can create-, that will unleash the emergence of new movements that will begin to challenge "The System". (Amongst which diversity there will still hopefully be a deep "unifying" instinct, rooted in challenging programmatic principles, to transform the nation, its direction and socio-economic life, away from the narrow capitalist view of socio-economic reality.)

As for the NDP though, I think it has about shot its wad, and has reached a level of critical "demise", such that it is just about a write-off. The trade union movement just about as well. Both too mired in the politics of compromise, opportunist deal making, and absence of a social, political and economic vision of the people's needs and those of the nation worth rallying around and fighting to implement. And part of the measure of that is this seeming need the NDP has, to attempt to build at least the appearance of itself up, by constantly sniping at the only real, though I think illusory, challenger it perceives to itself, coming from the Greens.(One the "lite" of the other, really, I think.)

I am not personally especially impressed with the Greens anymore than I am the NDP, seeing them as largely a class force that does not represent my lower working class mileau, itself without a clear or egalitarian vision we need. But then, like I say,the NDP has itself been a slow moving, if snowballing disappointment, just about from the very day it emerged from out of the womb of the old CCF. (And which is not to say it did not need updating, as does the entire "left".)

Were an election held today, in fact,I have finally arrived by degrees to the point where there is not a goddamn political party out there I could in good conscience vote for. Not a one. (Though I have been arriving at this place for awhile.) Which, I am coming to the conclusion, seems to indicate the direction in which things are actually going to have to develop first, and are anyway, before serious "left" alternatives are likely to begin to gel up on the political landscape: such a widespread disengagement and turning away from the "status quo" socio-political processes, as to make the sham of its "democracy" apparent to everyone, and interject some element of accumulative "reality" into the consideration of what our real choices are. Certainly this is becoming increasingly true and obvious for all we Great Unwashed lower class stratas, from the "non-professional" working class strata at least on down, through and into the poorest of the poor.

Clearly, my view of the potential of the NDP is somewhat more negative than Fait's. Nonetheless, I think we are all still kind of feeling around for a pulse at the carotid artery of the body, which is not quickly apparent, if at all.

Though Fait does again, make many good points, as always. Especially:

Welll Carole, now you have your marching orders. Set up Gordo in a dark alley and kick the snot out of him.
Burn down the CanWest offices, get some one to beat up the Green leader, just for starters. Tell all the movers and shakers with the big bucks that you will do just what they say if they will support you. Tell the world that the new screwed up softwood lumber deal is just great, even now that Gordo has figured out your critic was right all along.

The list of opportunities are right there. Oh and by the way explain to Gordo that shutting down prisons to save money didn't work as his hero Harper intends to lock up anyone that even looks like they might do something wrong. Offer to support Gordo in closing a few more hospital beds and long term beds for the old folks.
Maybe a General Strike would keep the news guys happy. The ideas abound. But really, take a few minutes and figure out what the back rooms guys are trying to do. Every party has those sort of folks. some arn't worth much and some end up being pretty sharp. Dix for example

The main reason for these so called "compromises " is corporate blackmail. Now multinational corporate blackmail, legalized all over the world under phoney "free trade" and the WTO.

They're on record with well proven precedents, that if people vote for any government the corporate bosses don't like, they simply pull the carpet from under the local, provincial and/or national economies and societies.

If the NDP were elected in BC tomorrow, we'd immediately get an artificially created "recession", and on the federal level a US invasion and occupation to "preserve democracy in Canada from the socialists" , in other words, the preservation of unlimited and
legalized exploitation, colonizing and daylight robbery pivilileges, under the fraudulent concept of "free enterprise".

Ed Deak.

gotta love seeing all these lefties slugging it out. thanks tyee!

Actually Elliot, not that your opinion matters a tinker's damn here, I'm surprised by the degree of agreement and similarity of analysis direction amongst we "lefties" here. And as for what debate amongst ourselves there is, I consider that a healthy phenomena. The least thing we need, for sure, is such a top down, party line, politburo arrangement as typified the old Soviet system, and today typifies the neocon Conservatives.

As just observed previously in http://thetyee.ca/Books/2006/06/27/BennettReconsidered/ this is exactly what went down in BC in 72-75 and through the Harcourt dynasty; as much as the papers and the business types were bewailing the environmental movement's "destructive" boycotts, they themselves were exhorting people not to invest in BC (because of the NDP) and kept on publishing editorials about how it was a bad place to do business. They blamed the NDP for that, remember....i.e. the economic downturn they managed to create themselves. Not quite enough of a downturn, actually; there was this huge boom throughout the Harcourt years; which of course the papers then credited to the Miniwac government. And also throughout, the ongoing mantra about how horrible the NDP were, how ashamed people were, how much of a mockery they were supposed to be making of government, about how scandal-ridden they were supposed to hve been: just all spew; and whining, whining....which is of course what they accuse the left of doing. All pretty loopy, huh?

That's all reprise. What struck me about Ed's post is that we're about to see that go down in Mexico. Where, of course, there's a Florida-style electoral deadlock and lots of questions about who fudged the voting system, yet even though the Mexican electoral authority has said it won't announce a result until every last ballot has been counted, conservative papers and media outlets in North America are already saying things like "conservatives moving steadily towards victory" i.e. in the ballot-counting, presumably; but that's behind closed doors. So what they're using to make these assertions is "private exit polls" (selected ones, of course) and because statisticians are in the business of selling numbers for pay...

But the real upshot, knowing Mexico to be not much different than Canada, is that the conservative media has already decided who it is they want to win; and so they're already announcing that the deadlock will result in their favour. Which, in Mexico, if you grease enough palms, anything's possible (actually you can do that here, too, you just have to belong to the right political party/interest group at the right level....i.e. "loaded")

But say all the efforts of the vote-riggers and propagandists result in what the leftists are claiming from THEIR exit polls - a margin of 500,000 votes? Wow - the leftist Mexican government long-anticipated in the wake of the PRI's decades-old stranglehold on Mexican politics (a brutally-held position now enjoyed and exploited by PAN, the rightist party).

Well, it doesn't take much imagination to see that the conservative financial community will pull the currency and investment carpets from beneath the feet of the Mexican people like that; such ragged, beat-up, torn carpets as those were. There'll be talk about an immediate recession, a collapse of the peso, and editorial after editorial about "lack of confidence in the Mexican government". A confidence its partners in NAFTA, Tory and GOP, can be expected to have every intention of destroying.....

"...just like that" is what I meant, i.e. with a snap of the fingers.

Can you remember the TV ads from "Army & Navy" stores?
It shows people walking out of the store bearing bags with the store logo, but in spite of that they tell an interviewer: "I would never buy from Army & Navy"!
As i see it a lot of people vote NDP, but will try hard to deny it, lest folks may think they are "workers".
NDP needs to upgrade its public image!

From today's online edition of the NY Times:

Wow; yet the perpetrators of violence in Mexico ever since the Revolution of the 1910s-20s (Emiliano Zapata et al) have always been the rightists; yet here the NY Times, flagship of the American media, is suggesting that the right-wing is worried about the LEFT becoming violent if they feel the election results are faked. It's true, I think, that Mexico is closer to a general civil war or revolution than any North American mainstream media is prepared to consider (and I'd venture the NAm politicos are pretty much neophytes about Mexico; cupidity mixed with disingenuousness mixed with the ambitions of rank greed).

What's curious about the Times' comment is that, without a doubt, if the rightists lose (as they still may, because the electoral commission is fairly transparent, relative to how it used to be), the emergence of right-wing violence against the left, the poor, the intelligentsia can be anticipated; possibly even a rightist version of the Zapatistas could emerge in hard-core PAN redoubts. In other words, the biggest risk of post-electoral violence in Mexico is from the right largely because they have been the pereptrators of ALL the pre-electoral violence and of general anti-poverty violence as a whole for decades, including the recent unionist killings in Oaxaca and the anti-cartel wars in Sonora and elsewhere. The PAN are simply a laundered version of the PRI; much as the BC Liberals are a laundered version of the Socreds, or the new federal Tories the zombie/golem of the Reform Party.

Political violence in the Mexican countryside, and in obscure cities tourists never visit, and rarely hear of, is so endemic that it's almost as if Mexico already had a civil war, but one where the sides haven't fully coalesced. That it's all intrinsicially interconnected with corruption in the military and police makes it all the scarier....

When I lived in Acapulco in 1987, my (poor) Mexican friends explained to me about all the headlines about "narco-traficante" (drug dealers, i.e. the cartels) in the newspapers were just the police/military cleaning up the competition; as in Michoacan and other states, over half of the marijuana plantations were/are under military and/or police control.

When Mexican cops talk about battles with the "cartels", as in Sonora at present, what they're battling are independent organizations that don't kick in "la mordita" ("the little bite", the institutionalized bribe; the image is that of a big fish nibbling a smaller fish). Which side the cartels/narco-traficantes have supported in the election is kinda hazy; but typically leftist parties are hostile to the drug lords, as in Colombia, because of their exploitation of the poor.

Here's the third paragraph from the same story:

Which is really "funny", because just yesterday in one of the Global rags Obrador's party had a 500,000 votge lead. So which "political and financial analysts" are we talking about here?? And why do financial analysts have any kind of expertise in electoral counts? Well, we know the answer to THAT, don't we?

Seems to me there are two extremes possible to explain the current (un)popularity NDP and James.

First, they have a wonderful platform and their failure to be sufficiently vicious in the Leg is holding them back. Second, their platform is crap and the voters realize it.

Not sufficiently vicious? When was the last time you heard James answer a question in which she did not begin "Gordon Campbell is a liar!" What was her first response when Harper axed the Kelowna accord? Blame Campbell - calling it his personal failure. Not - this is a goal we can all get behind and perhaps make a difference. Nope, nothing nice like that. Just another chance to slag Campbell. When Campbell ignored her bleating and took the high road, she looked pathetic.

Vicious is no problem. Perhaps her lack of variation on this simple theme though is boring voters.

Nope, being too nice is not the problem. Having nothing to say is the problem.

Of course, lefties had no less fun, watching the righties of the PC Party selling out its dead body to deadbeat bagmen and fully owned hacks.

To be more competitive, of course!

Ed Deak.

But that's the intrinsic nature of so-called parliamentary democracy: a make-work project for party hacks and "deadbeat bagmen". This all came out in public discussions, even in the mainstream media, in the wake of the Charlottetown Accord fiasco and also during the Spicer Commission; but it's since been hushed up with all kinds of high-sounding talk about what a great system it is and how it's worked so good since 1867 and all that.....IT HAS????

Calling black white is a staple of politics. Pretending that bagmen are political operatives, or that party hacks are dedicated to their constituents, is just all part of the formula.

An MPs/MLAs job is to get payback from public funds for the people who helped get him elected, plus any regulations/policies which may benefit them; or hurt their competition/enemies. They don't represent their constituents except insofar as they get to squabble in committee, caucus and cabinet for a chunk of the budget for their own riding. And if they're not in the governing party, a la Mexico, they don't get the federal largesse that a government member would get: a clear case of partisan appropriation of public monies, all wrapped up in the high-and-holy clothing of parliamentary democracy. That this can be accomplished with only a plurality, and not a majority, of the vote makes it all the more noxious.

Of course, what you hear from the politicos who appear to be heading for possible government is "if you want some money from the public trough, you better vote for us; or we'll punish you because whomever else you vote for we just won't pay that much attention to". Almost in so many words, flubbed and spun enough to sound acceptable. But it's not. It's a clear case of political extortion, and an open statement that partisan interests will trump public decency and fairness every time.

One last comment about Mexico: asked about who won the revolution (1920s), the answer was "the mafia". Not the Italian Mafia, of course, but the Mexican version thereof. For a long time their clothing was the PRI; now it's PAN.

I agree !

The prime example is the so called "free trade" gimmick that has nothing to do with trade except in human flesh, through the use of propaganda, selling fascism as "freedom".

Any Party that supports this racket is obviously working against any form of democracy.

Ed Deak.

Why Gordo is in such a hurry to Privatize & ultimately to help break up Canada with Harper in Quebec & stirring up the hard line separatists!
I ran across this little bit of truth that may answer why Harper wants to be a dictator with G. Bush & kill/murder innocents & kill our boys & girls in a land of extream war like tribes.
WHY?
In the forties and fifties they invented a weapon that could wipe out mankind, if not life on earth. The thermonuclear H-bomb meant that if wealth was to be acquired it would have to be done stealthily and without upsetting governments. For this and other reasons big business around the world came together to formalize networks of influence with virtually limitless resources that transcended national boundaries and they began the final moves towards privatizing the Earth. They knew the main difficulty would be the nation state so they plotted its downfall. From http://www.bilderberg.org/The

Good points, Skookum 1. I too am following Mexican developments with much interest, and primarily for their potential implications to the NAFTA. Any move towards undermining or diminishing the priority of NAFTA objectives by a future Mexican government, more likely in the short run than from our end I suspect, would similarly buy this country a second chance to hike up its cajones and move towards its own "national self-sufficiency".

That link isn't working BC Dude. Sound like it would be an interesting read.

Coyote - you're missing out on the Bilderberg consiparcy theories because you don't have the Lefty Whacko Decoder Ring... I understand that Ed has some for sale.

BC Dude, what a load of crap. The goofiest part of it all is that some people here actually believe that nonsense....sheesh.

"Bilderberg consiparcy (sic) theories"

I suppose the Builderburgers merely sit around and discuss their golf games, not how to screw the rest of the world...

That should read Bilderburgers, sorry

I think he meant, "Bilderberg constipation theories."

Returning to Rafe's interesting column, I think that you'd find pretty wide agreement with his views if you polled Press Gallery members - not that I have.
But I wonder if the kinds of tactics needed today, in a Jerry Springer world, to reach the old politics-as-blood-sport standard aren't simply too destructive. Do we risk convincing people the whole business is sordid and pointless?
The NDP raised the children and families' ministry issues effectively, politically and practically, without calling for resignations or accusing anyone of hating children. It can be done.
There is a paradox. Raise effective questions about bad bills, like the Liberals' proposal to hide private-public projects from FOI requests, and the government may just pull them. Good news for the public; probably less politically useful than something to rail about for the next four years.
I just can't imagine a justification for the horror show the B.C. legislature has sometimes been.

As we know, only the lefites and the union "bosses" conspire. The big business "leaders" only get together to bring on wealth, freedom and prosperity to all.

Ed Deak.

I suppose the Builderburgers merely sit around and discuss their golf games, not how to screw the rest of the world...Anarcho

Well, with such noted members as Connie Black and Heather Reisman they just may be bright enough to control your world......

Ed Deak.

Hardly, Ed. It just seems that the lefties swoon over the same cheap parlour tricks every time......bring on the Circus.

The BC left fall for the same parlor tricks time and time again. Made up of professional protesters, activists and union thugs whose only tactic is to stoke the fires of class warfare they think that street tough tactics are the only way to get into government.

Naturally, their memories are short and they forget their own thug and bully, Glen Clark, made such a mess of the NDP and BC that not only did the voters nuke the NDP, but alot of socialists hated Clark. The BC left has to carefully guard against its own weaknesses and reflex tendencies to crave confrontation.

Most BC people believe unions are irrelevant to their daily lives and that unions are just another self-interested, special interest group. Time for the NDP to change this perception by being a party of reason not class warfare. A booming economy means the NDP has to select its battles carefully. Fighting the Ministries of Child welfare and education is smart. Trying to preach a new economic order only makes the NDP look foolish.

I know. Those fond memories of Solidarity die hard. Come on, hug it out, move on.

The BC economy is very sick, and is being fed from the sale of capital, receiving worthless US dollars in return.

Figure out how long businesses can last from the sale of their capital and without any accounting of depletion and liabilities.

If I'd sell my properties I too could live high on the hog for a while, but what then ?

The brainwashed faithful should try to read history and business economics for a change, instead of falling for the propaganda for every snake oil salesman.

Big business is not stupid enough to sell , or even invest, their own capital. They borrow freshly created, imaginary money from the banks to take over the properties of others, then if things go wrong, they just walk away under corporate laws.

If our "rightie" friends had any brains they could figure out that the so called "socialists" and "lefties" are the people who are really concerned with real property rights, while the carpetbaggers are only interested in what they can steal from them.

Ed Deak,

Ed - us righties care about real property rights too. Corporations are merely legal entities, usually made up of regular folks who have many of the same rights and obligations that individuals have.

You too can borrow money from the bank and if your investment goes wrong...just walk away.

It's just too far out to lunch to suggest that every corporation is engaged in fraud and are corporate carpetbaggers.

Here's an idea - if you hate corporations, stop patronizing them. And if you and the other lefties really care about the issue. Stop whining and come up with an alternative.

noleftnut, I have owned 3 corporations.
How many have you ?

The problem with you faithful is that you can't move your heads out of the prescribed and memorized cliches, as shown in your consistent references to "lefties".

Do you have the faintest idea what you're talking about, apart from repeated patterns?

Like the nazi SA used to say:"If you don't understand somebody, hit him with a chair"

Bring an economics prof. on this blog and watch me cut him to pieces. Being a Cambridge man, I specialize on Oxford profs. and have driven a few to tears on various worldwide economic forums.

The alternative is the textbook definition of economics: "The science for the management and distribution of scarce resources".

This definition usually appears on the first pages of 1-01 texbooks, then the students are brainwashed for 4-5 more years, learning screwball math. on how to ignore it.

Now let's hear some more cookie cutter cliches about lefties not knowing nuthin'.

Cheers, Ed.

If there's a son-of-Jim Jones out there please make yourself known. There seem to be lots of thirsty lefties here.

I know, I know, life expectancy is longer than ever and unemployment is lower than ever and home ownership is higher than ever and even the weather's great but lots of 'em insist that the end is neigh and they don't wanna see it.

Come on guys, let's start new political party. Once elected we'll scrap all those phony elections, as well as all those agreements and laws. Let's call it the 'Independent Anarchists Brother-and-Sister-and non-familiarly affiliated' Hood.

Interesting, isn't it? How even The Tyee, ostensibly (if you're a rightwinger) a lefty publication, manages to attract so many rightist rabble-posters to make funny cartoons of their shallow political "opinions" for the rest of us to sneer at. It's an old tactic of organized power groups; send in people talking nonsense, making allegations, diverting discussions and basically being a waste of time; all to thwart the development of potentially dangerous discussions.

And to Coyote: it's cojones, from cojer (to f**k); cajones means "drawers", like a chest of drawers; una caja is a box.

If Rafe is right, we would be better off trying to get BC out of Canada. The rightwingers would all go to Alberta, the investors would run away, and we could get our civil liberties back, by just voting.

How about putting parliamentary seats on the open market and auction them off to make sure the "right people" can make the decisions for the stupid, unwashed.

Of course, in a way it is happening now, when we look at the list of donations to various parties.

This way we could ensure that the multinationals, given "national treatment" under the NAFTA and WTO, could buy seats to continue and improve their wealth creating activities.

By the way, people who know a bit of history also know that the German people never had it better than their first 6 years under Hitler, so they followed him blindly on his wealth creating adventures.

Ed Deak.

I couldn't have said it better myself. Carole, to her credit, has tried, unsuccessfully, to change this. The call for communism is not one that is going to be readily answered, though,Ed.

When Carole James was made chief puppet of the unions I am sure Gordon Campbell cried with joy and glee. He and his party are now more popular than ever. He is coasting into a third majority and Carole hardly ever gets in the news.

The NDP has to reform itself. It lives at least 40 years in the past. Whole industries have developed that their union masters have not even gotten near.

But, fortunately for the BC Liberal Party, the NDP is not capable of reforming itself or examining why it has lost that last two elections, once crushingly so.

And that gives Gordon Campbell job security. And he knows it.

Gordon Campbell is, thankfully, his own worst enemy. Give him a few months and some incriminating news from the Basi/Virk (and others too numerous to mention) trial and he'll have his foot firmly back in his mouth.

A month is an eternity in politics; things change.

As to Ed's point above about the period 1933 - 39 in Germany, he's absolutely right. It doesn't take much to keep the average citizen happy, BC and Alberta are current evidence of that fact. Throw around some money and many peoples' critical faculties go on holiday even if their own long-term best interests are going down the toilet.

Gordon will soon fall from grace. Another Hawaii type incident or a major scandal will loom and he will have to go.

It is the nature of the beast.

But beware, the bitch that bears them is in heat again.

WM.....your staggering ignorance of ideologies and history is astonishing, but then, all of you with your programmed speech patterns keep on repeating the same worn out cliches.

Unions are bad, big business cartels and oligopolies are great. The Bilderbergers, the Trilaterals, the WEF etc. preach wealth creating competition. That's why the same crooks get together several times a year to decide the best methods of competition against each other, not for dividing the world between them.

The communist internationale and the capitalist globalization are the same principles and concepts.

Both the communists and capitalists are working and are dead against all forms of independent unions. In communist countries they're under party cadres, around here we have the Christian unions in some of the local mines.

Communist collectivization and "free enterprise" takeovers are again the same, under the same gangs of pirates.

The Comintern and Neocons have both declared social democracy as the greatest enemy of their wealth creating schemes, because they're brothers under the skin.

Now lets' hear some more patterned nonsense trying to justify the wealth creating robber campaigns of some of the biggest criminals in history.

Ed Deak.

"Cojones" it is, of course. Regrettably, a too often repeated error in spelling that I make. :-) I appreciate the correction, and will spellcheck the word each time from here on in, until I get it right. LOL.

Hang in there against the 'cons, folks. I'm away again today. Y'all, but especially Fait, are making a good read out of this thread.

I have been hearing that one for a long time. How's the chrystal ball working?

Ed, your off the shelf dogma is just that. Dogma. We've heard it all before and it is simply out of date. If you and your people want to form a government something more realistic and concrete will be necessary.

The reason I keep reapeating that the NDP has to reform itself is because the message is not getting though. The reason the NDP is not winning elections and forming governments for the huge majority of Canadians is their lack of inward focus and the inability to take responsiblity for their defeats. It is always some faceless conspiracy (like Neocons) that keep them out of power, not their policies.

GWest, look at the polls. Gordon and Carole are.

The NDP campaigned as the Liberals have been governing. Where are they going to criticize them?

They have managed to secure labour peace, expand the economy, and improve health care (in relation to other provinces). Areas of concern have been olympic spending, RAV overruns and the gateway project.

However, the NDP can't really criticize either because the silent majority is vastly in favour of both.....

The NDP are stuck in between a rock and a hard place. The economy is good, we are in a surplus position, there is labour peace, and the Liberals are in the position where they can implement popular spending plans.

If she takes a hard-line stance and aligns herself with the teachers, she will be labelled as pandering to special interest groups - which will not sit well with the public.

If she takes a hard line stance on the millenium project, she is sure to lose all of the fraser valley - where she picked up considerable gains in the last election.

The only thing she can fall back on is the environment....and continue to hammer away on the usuals - education and health care....

However, all of this is being lost in the sounds of ringing cash registers. People are doing well in BC, and people are happy.

She is going to have to wait patiently until the economy cools, and then hammer away relentlessly. However, in these times, she will only sound like an out of touch whining nag if she continiously hammers away on popular projects.

I really don't think it is that she is doing a poor job and that she is too "nice" - I think it is that the Liberals have done an excellent job.

Coyote, yesterday it was working, so we have a few rats in here who report back to the rat pack.
Try this for the truth. http://www.bilderberg.org/
This is Democracy?
http://www.bilderberg.org/2006.htm#VIP
Read [08Jun06 - Ottawa Citizen - Bilderberg-bound filmmaker held at airport]
Most of my Bilderberg websites in my favorites are not there anymore? Hummmm me thinks this is the start of selective freedom on the www.
AT&T & Verizon are in the processes of Privatizing the last vestiges of Democracy because now the world can immediately know the Real news. IWTnews.com will be a real breath of fresh reporting
Workingman U R an absolute dimwit along with nln, capitalism, BobbyPeru.
Working Man, what sort of work are U in?
Read the site above & try to make an intelligent blog about it OK!

Not surprising you'd say this Maybelle. They are doing an excellent job for their narrow selfish greedy constituency. So What! This is hardly new. Let's wait a bit until some of the backroom deals (or the conspiracy to keep it all quiet) start to come to light. There is no peace within the Liberal ranks, as anyone close to the government knows. The rot will come to the surface - it would happen a lot sooner if we had a real independent press - but it will come to light none the less.

A good article for starting some discussion.
I also like Paul Willocks post.

The problems are:
1) People dislike politicians. If they are too nice we think they are wimps. If they are too nasty we tune out of politics and become cycnical.
I live in South Korea and most young people (just like here) don't vote. I find most Koreans 40 and under to have a very negative outlook towards politics. And remember, there first truly free election was in 1993 (many argue that the 1988 election was not really free).
2) Voter turnout is declining worldwide.
3) Not enough people are active in their communities.
4) The old press sucks (newspapers, TV and radio). It does not work very hard at informing people.

As someone who ran in eight (8) elections (municipal, provincial and federal) mostly with the Greens I can tell you that I now despise political parties and what they and the system stand for and do. I'm not yet cycnical and apathetic, but I'm sometimes I see that it is easy to fall into that trap.
Will I run in another election when I return to Canada?
Most likely I will not. I would rather volunteer in the community and work with grassroots NGOs.

Reform is definitely needed!

Kevan Hudson
Suncheon, South Korea

.

This was in fact Mao Tse-Glenn's major mistake. Carole knows that. As long as the economy (for those of us who act instead of wait) continues to steam along as it is, there is little hope for the NDP.

For most of us, the economy is doing very well. I am a contractor and believe me, there is a job for anyone who wants to break a sweat. For many, however, it is easier to post dogma here and whine.

I sure as hell don't think the Liberals have done a good job. In fact, in the past year, I'd say they haven't done much of anything!

As for securing "labour peace" - get real, they threw bribe money at the union membership. If the NDP had done anything like that, the media and the right would have been howling with rage until the next election.

As for securing "labour peace" - get real, they threw bribe money at the union membership. If the NDP had done anything like that, the media and the right would have been howling with rage until the next election.

On the money. The cries of "sweetheart deals" and "in the pocket's of union's" would have been deafening.

Working man says: "it is easier to post dogma here and whine."

And his posts are proof positive that that is true it's all he ever does, as a matter of fact.

.

Just think what the shape of this province would be if we had actually had a government that had given a damn about the citizens of this province including a sense of stewardship over the resources of this province.

It was low interest rates, hot commodity markets and federal largesse through transfer payments that helped an arrogant and failing government survive.

Despite themselves, Campbell's BC Liberals were propped up into the appearance of success...so-called success that has clearly devastated this province in many ways.

The present state of BC is much like those condominiums in Kelowna... that if you really inspect the structure closely, cracks are everywhere...but hey, the outside appearance loooooks good...which is all that ever really counts to fools and con men.

Big fault lines occurring under the surface of the tottering success that is now BC:

Hospitals, emergency rooms, learning conditions in schools, senior homes, railways.... all going off the track.

BC Hydro, ferries, freedom of information, human rights, rural areas, wild BC salmon...all sinking.

Logging accidents, 2010 Olympic debt, poverty, endangered species in BC...all dangerously rising.

BC Rail, BC Ferries, BC Hydro and BC "Liberals".... in name only. "Our" medical information, "Our" freedom of information"...in name only as well.

Our province sold-out... and to add to the insult, "marked-down" for easy sale.

Surely this outrageous sell-out must fan the bold fires of Opposition? Then why so meek?...when the times require so much more.

So even though I agree that corporate blackmail will paint artificial recessions, attempt to dislodge confidence in governments that don't tow the corporate line etc...buy off a free press into a complicitly corporate one...an effective Opposition must find a way around this or it is simply wasting extremely critical time in our ability to act at all.

But the answer is not going to be found in trudging out all the old ways of response..... those that the neo-cons can predict. We need some seriously imaginative intelligence, some innovation...some sheer guts and courage displayed. The Opposition must find a way to oppose...or simply give up the battle...and raise the white flag.

That's what real leadership is about...and while, I think there have been ten or twelve really outstanding NDP MLA's in the present Opposition, I think James has failed in the leadership department...simply because issues are not being brought to light in a way that engages the public in the struggle...and that is her job...to find a way or step down.

Instead she continues to prefer the co-operative approach. It may work on school board committees, but not as Rafe suggests, in opposition.

It's easy...do not co-operate in any way with traitors.

The NDP should have taken every opportunity to shout that they want no part of the political subterfuge presently going on in BC. No part. They should have refused the salary increase, refused to take part in committees, refused to participate in the condescending pretensions of the pretend round table. Refuse to stand by the present government in any way.

For Gawd's sake, nice is nowhere land... take a stand...and take it loudly and clearly..and bravely...or get out of the way for those willing to do so.

This is such a highly critical time in the history of province and in this country/world that representation of the people by the milquetoast and the nice is not only foolhardy but dangerous to us all.

The inability and unwillingness to take a forceful stand is, in the end, threatening in its niceness to those very hard won democratic freedoms that we all depend so deeply upon.

lynn, verso and you like-minded socialists:

whether they have mismanaged eveything from this side of Sunday, or not, the perception is that they have done a good job - which I certainly agree with.

this article is primarily about Carole James ineffectiveness as a leader, not a report card on the Campbell's performance - to which I reiterate, she is stuck between a rock and a hard place.

the "p" word (privatization) no longers scares the public, and most british columbians seem to agree that our resources are better managed by corporations than the government - only time will tell if we are right. If you look one province over, you'll see oil rich Alberta. People in that province have rallied behind the commodities boom and average citizens are making thousands on the stock market. In Norway, they are tucking the money under the mattress and the citizens are seeing far less....

We'll see which approach is better, but Albertans are using their funds to re-invest in the province and as a result the economy is becoming much more diversified. In Norway, they are saving for a rainy day!

The point is that the economy is good, and people seem to agree with Campbell's spending priorities. They have been in a position over the past 5 years to release all sorts of goodies from the bag...

So, what is Carole to do? Critize things that most people seem to agree with? Check out the polls in the Fraser Valley re. the Gateway Project and greater Vancouver re. RAV.

Look at the studies comparing BC's health care and economic growth versus the rest of Canada.

Her hands are tied! I have a lot of respect for the lady. She seems to be less ideologically influenced than any other opposition leader and seems to care about the future of British Columbians.

I suppose she sees things as I do right now.....pretty darn good!

What studies?

They why did they accept it? Is it because they realise, as the majority of voters in British Columbia do, that the NDP will never form another goverment as long as they cannot change themselves?

And his posts are proof positive that that is true it's all he ever does, as a matter of

Really, GWest? What I post here is basically the message you cannot get. I will post it again:

What have we done wrong? What can we do to make ourselves a government? What can we do to make our platform more attractive to a demographically changing society?

Can you really address this/

No, you can't and that is why 90% of Canadians do not live with NDP governments.

- More evidence that the propagandists who used to rail "communist hordes at the gate" are still in the employ of BC's rightwing spin machines....,

Oh I see, it is the perception behind the functioning of emergency rooms, schools, ferries, railways that is all important. The details, the facts, the true quality of things...errrr... the truth of the matter.... pales in comparison to the significance of perception...whether false or not.

So everything is just about image...creating a certain perception by fooling the public.

hmmmmm......

I luv it..I choose my doctors the same way...especially my surgeons...entirely on perception....to heck with certification...if he looks like a doctor....good enough.

Same goes for airplane pilots, a nice "aviatorish" smile gets me every time, especially if he/she looks like a pilot...and looks like he can fly the plane. Who am I to quibble about "the details" of whether he is really a pilot or not...or to question his ability to actually land an airplane? If he winks like a pilot on take-off...well, those are all the facts I need to know.

Holy Cow you guys - you had ten years in Government! How did that work out for you?? Now you want more????

`Splain yourselves.......Please.

working man
You're the one doing the whining. I just thought I'd point it out. You're whining about the fact that people who don't agree with you don't agree with you. That's hardly surprising, but it is the only kind of thing you ever do when you post here. That's what I meant about whining.

I'm actually quite upbeat about the prospects for defeating the current corrupt and crooked government because I think the economy is sitting on an enormous inflated bubble. The question is, will it burst before or after the next election? That is not, in my opinion, whining. Unlike virtually everything you post.

In fact, why do you even bother? You're really pretty much of a joke around here anyway.

Maxwell, since 1900, the NDP has been in power in this province for exactly 13 years. A lot of good happened during those few years out of the past 106; some mistakes too. On the other hand, if your post above implies that the left should be satisfied with 10 years when the right has had pretty much its own way for the other 93 years since 1900, well, I don't think so. We'll keep on working until we get power again and we'll try to change things for the better for everyone - and not just the friends and cronies of folks from mining, road building, the lumber industry and Howe street. Right now things are pretty good economically and the boys upstairs are letting a few scraps fall from the table. It won't last and the inherent greed and corruption of this government will be its undoing, in my view.

If that's the point you're trying to make I think it's you who should do some explaining. Where'd you like to start?

Perhaps the NDP should replace Carole James with Don Cherry!
Hw will go to any extreme to get attention, and, damn, he was voted one of the best Canadians on the CBC contest/series.
Then all our astute political commentators would have something to write about. I mean, just look at those jackets!
The big news after the budget was the Gucci shoes...wow, what astounding analysis.
The media-Province, Sun, B.C. T.V. will devour any NDP leader- perhaps James should be given some credit for not setting herself up as a target.
I think the NDP did a superb job on many issues, without getting down in the muck with the bloodsporting type. Don Cherry would not be pleased, I know.

Workingman, I'm one of your lefties, however, you and I have to live on this planet for awhile yet. Is there any area in which we have a common interest? If we live in a democracy, we are obliged to seek solutions to problems that plague both of of us. Right? Or maybe I should have said all of us. Kicking the NDP or the Liberals will not put any food on my table or yours. Is there any issue of public policy on which we see, eye to eye, that could serve as an example of civic responsibility in action? I know PUTDOWNS are more fun than compromise, but do we not have a duty, to try for more harmony and less acrimony? Try this, minimum wage too low, too high? what?

Say, 'lynn', what about these stats?

http://www.boardoftrade.com/Policy/BCEconomicUpdate-Health&Ed-apr05.pdf

Ed – I’m only at two and counting…..but I do have some other bona fides if you’re interested. I spent 10 years as a senior manger at a $200 million plus local business with 1000 employees and had to deal with every element of the financial planning, operation and management. I’m currently working for an 8-figure import/export company that deals with vendors and customers on 4 continents and in 4 currencies. We deal with small companies, below 6 figures, on both sides and some huge ones, one over $25 billion in annual sales in a competitive industry where commodity prices and currency fluctuations affect our bottom line every day while we employ 22 people from coast to coast.

As I’ve said before, that’s your whole shtick, isn’t it? The theoretical, not the practical. Couple that with your stated hypocrisy of patronizing big corporations and your conflicting statements on the profit motive and you don’t even scare the uneducated like me………

Talk about patterned responses don't these continued claims of “robber barons’ and ‘fraudulent behaviour” seem to get a little repetitive after a while?

demomaniac, you and GWest are completely missing my point. It is so simple, too. Your party does not form governments very often. The do not receive enough votes. What is the reason for this? Are you insinuating that voters are too stupid to make the "correct" decision and vote socialist?

This is the hard part you guys have to face: What is your party doing wrong in that it has held power in BC for only 13 years since 1871 and what is the fedeal party doing wrong when it is only reaching seat levels of 1964? Can you and your party actually examine why this is happening?

Perhaps a new track is needed? For even as much as you have tried to demonise Gordon Campbell he has never been more popular. His party is polling better than it ever has. Your performance in the legislature was pathetic last session.

So, instead of attacking me, why not look inward and ask youself this:

What are we doing wrong? What can we change so that we can form governments both provincially and federally?

The Liberals (provincially) and Conservative (federally) know you can't do this. I know you can't do it and you also know you can't do it.

But you make an excellent opposition.

It is right off the shelf, man. I heard it verbatum in university twenty years ago. What strikes me as so comical is how they absolutely cannot fathom how they can't form governments.

realisticman;

i don't even bother to waste my time trying to scour the internet to support known facts. every economic group and investment analyst in the country has documented BC blistering growth, as well as growth forecasts.

if she wants to dilute herself, and believe that the economy would be performing equal to or better than it has with an NDP government in charge, let her...

however, it is no secret that the economy is doing well.

Cap, the reason these people is that life is not doing well for them. Because they are socialists, they cannot take responsibility for the decisions that they have made that caused their lack of success, personally or politically. They would rather spout dogma and blame faceless others. Once they get on a dogmatic track, they cannot get off. Look at their campaign to demonise Premier Campbell, for example. A total failure.

Will they change? No, they won't and the BC Liberals will yet again get elected and the federal NDP will continue to call 29 seats "a victory."

In other words: they did not attend university and qualify for a soft job!
Hence anyone who has managed to obtain good position in life is justified in belittling those of us who actually produce the things you all need!
I say be happy that we still have folks who are prepared to get their hands dirty!
Be happy that you do not have to do mean, manual labour!
But at the same time, have the decency to appreciate the working class, and be prepared to reward them!
You cannot expect working families to live on the poverty level and not get upset!
This society consists of many who have next to no income for reasons not their own!
As a society we have an obligation to do better than we are doing now!
Yes, this may be a boom time for you, so why are you kicking those less fortunate?

Perfect class envy baloney for the well named, Gloomy.

Fact: Many sucessful entrepeneurs have not had a university education.

It's the old 'working class' groan that destroyed Britain. It's so passeé one has to laugh.

Arguments and tirades like this can never be accomodated no matter how lavish the social programmes, or how vibrant the business climate, or how low the unemployment lavels.

This drop-out-at-14 now has to get back to his business...

And many people with five-star university educations take up a trade or a business that has nothing to do with the degree they took. And not necessarily humanities degrees either, but "job degrees" like science, engineering, criminology and economics. And in fact, humanities degrees are often in demand by personnel and human resources recruiters because they're not as locked into "box-think" as the narrow mindset that someone who's only taken a science, business or marketing degree tends to have. If you look in upper echelons of the executive class you're just as likely to find someone with a B.A. in English Lit than you are a B.A. in marketing. More likely, in fact.

I won't start on journalism degrees...(journalists should study geography and history more usefully than anything else IMO, not courses in how to pander to the masses/publishers)

The class envy developing here is between those with oodles of capital, who can make oodles more of capital by manipulating it (say, in the form of real estate assets), and those who can't get any capital, because everything they're earning is going into the effects of the capital manipulation (i.e. no chance of buying a house because they can't save enough to make a DP or get good credit or manage the ridiculously high mortgages and taxes that go with $500,000+ "houses"). And of course you have "class contempt" as well, which is the attitude of those who have managed to own property against those who can't: "they're lazy and shiftless"...but they better pay their rent on time so the mortgage gets paid for the guy who has the title.

All pretty sick. Something much worse than a bubble, that's for sure. The only satisfaction you can have (speaking as an un-capitalled person, in other words a renter/wageslave) is that the bubble is going to burst sooner or later and all that capital is going to EVAPORATE like the puff'n'stuff that it actually is. A bluff, a conceit of the banks and credit companies and realtors.

That Chris guy on Global last night practically had an orgasm as he announced that housing prices in Calgary went up by 30% in the last quarter or whatever period it was. Global was also pitching Prince George last night as "BC's hottest new economy" - in other words, the next place to by hyped for jacking its real estate values so the banks and realty companies can make even more money by persuading people they have to sell their souls for a roof over their heads. And all, by the way, thanks to Alberta needing to build pipelines across BC; not that PG will grow because it's actually got its own producing economy; it will exist/flourish as part of Imperial Alberta...

Of course, the same crowd who have these negative attitudes towards the people actually making the capital are themselves more concerned with where to eat out that night, which golf course to go drink/screw around at, where to buy their vacation condo, and which resort they're going to go to. They "work for their money" or something, I guess....

Getting back to Rafe's article........two other "nice" people that should be put on the shelf: David Suzuki and Stephen Lewis. Both of them have spent their lives trying to get their messages across to little avail. They both consider themselves as failures because they haven't been able to get people to listen.
Perhaps Rafe is correct - neither of these people are "bloodsporters" and look where it has got them.
However, I would suggest that perhaps the problem isn't with the "nice" people, it is with" us", the" us" that is so ignorant that we twice voted in the human disgrace called George Bush. The "us" that has sat back for 150 years as our First Nations people have been brought to third-nation status. The "us" that admires and supports corporations that have destroyed tribal homelands in Ecuador. The "us" that is basically selfish and greedy.
Let's fill the pews of politics with "nice" people.

greengreen:

i disagree. i believe the environmental movement is stronger than it has ever been. rich/poor - everybody seems to care!

true, there has been little action - however, there is a whole lot of dialogue - this is the start of great things to come.

i believe the business community will ultimately spearhead these issues. man, economy and the land all need to interact.

And I believe the greatest tragedy of environmentalism is that the left took it over as "its" issue, thereby alienating the corporate/business class (the "right") from wanting to listen to the issues, which are obviously more scientific than political. And as a result, the business types have only been catching up with environmental issues and technology (and all the money to be made/saved) a couple of decades too late. Protest environmentalism did not much more than turn them off; it's only because it started costing them money that they noticed and are prepared to deal with it; and because the internet class, the "new money", were educated about it and had the clout (because they have bucks) to get other capital-spinners to listen.

so realisticman...your board of trade link shows this government supposedly spends more on health and education...yet patients are being treated in hospital hallways, their hospital rooms sometimes a made-over closet....patients are being moved out of town (some of them dying there)because there are no hospital beds available.

Why then are parents being asked to fundraise for textbooks and other educational needs at ever escalating rates ? Why have cuts been made to special needs?

Why in these so-called "economically good times" is money NOT being returned to community living caregivers and workers after this present government pressured them to sign a percentage of their hard-earned pay away?

If the economy is doing so well, who is actually benefiting from it?

Certainly not patients in hospitals. Certainly not the learning conditions of students. Certainly not our provincial parks, where our park wardens have been reduced to an almost non-existent level.

Certainly not our forests as they continue to burn...because the present government refuses to address the effects of global warming on climate change... the funding of which is simply not happening at any adequate level in this province.

In the end, the present government's lack of long-term vision and stewardship will be revealed for all to see. It will not be able to deviously toy with public perception... or advertise away the tragic long-term damage it has done to this province...all in the name of ruthless...not to mention sightless.... short term gain.

(tick tock, tick tock...still waiting for you to produce those "studies", Capitalism, that Alcibiades asked you for.....)

Lynn
Dunno if you noticed the story in the paper some weeks ago about a couple in Victoria who have a child (who's recently turned 18) and from whom, (because his IQ was less than 5 points over the cutoff for classification as disabled) all disabled funding and assistance was to be withdrawn upon his birthday. Well, the couple took the Provincial Government to court and won and they are now continuing with the payment and help needed to care for this boy. He is an enormous behavior problem (over 6 feet and about 250 pounds) and it is just impossible for him to operate in society without virtually 24-hour supervision and help. I don't know if the province is going to appeal but it wouldn't surprise me. I happen to know these people and they are at their wits end.

They are doing their best to care for this young man and it is tearing them apart (he was adopted as a baby from Family and Child Services and suffers from fetal alcohol syndrome and effect – unbeknown to them, of course, at the time of adoption). This is the kind of crap that ordinary people trying to do their best come up against in a province where everything, as maybelle, puts it, is coming up roses.

Always good to read you, sister.

Gloomy, why don't you go out and get that university education? I did and it was one of the best things I ever did in my life. It was a real struggle and it took me seven years to pay off the loans but I am sure glad I did it.

If I did it, why can't you?

Oh, and Gloomy, I am a construction contractor. I get dirty every day.

Too bad you didn't actually learn something other than the garbage you spout around here, working man - did you study commerce?

The only reason Gordo got back in was big $$ and Canwest rags pushing Green Party for first time. Canwest has lost over 122,000 subscribers in the last 2 yrs, humm could be that people are tired of reading fairy tales..
What Campbell is doing about FOI is just a start of "BIG BROTHER" taking over (Orwell 08) He's worried/scared that the truth will become public about
BC Rail, BC Ferries, BC Hydro, RAV, Eagle Ridge Estates (1800 view lots over looking Eagle Ridge & Pacific ocean) & on & on all dirty
The People of this Great province, BC are 3+ million strong we (for how long?) still have a huge voice & legally we should be able to boot these Thugs out of power!
Basi, Verk, etal organized crime but nothing in media why?
NDP Glen Clark & sundeck (scandal lol) was in media for weeks, plus RCMP went on a witch hunt in Clark’s house.

Same as Gordo’s Health Minister Penny Ballem’s resignation over Gordo’s cannibalization of OUR health care system and nothing in media, Why? Penny Ballem should be made a hero of and for the people she has the moxie so should we!

Hi G West,

I really think the present government has no idea of the real meaning of governance or of the once honourable concept of providing service...nor do they seem to understand that the lives of real human beings are at stake here.

Like you, I wouldn't be surprised either if the province appealed this case. They've certainly done it a number of times before...through their blindered profit and loss take on life.

The last thing your friends and their son need is for an already difficult path to be made even more difficult.

I wish them well....I imagine this experience has taken quite an emotional toll on them.

Lynn

Working Man:
As it happens I've run my own outfits on a couple of occasions, and done quite well thank you by getting my hands dirty and a bit of moxy.
This is about Carole James and the NDP, and my post points out that there is a class distinction and we are being considered inferior because we do get our hands dirty and not rewarded accordingly!
We are not all in the same boat , so there is a reason for the NDP to stand up for working families as well as those who have to live well below the poverty level.
That may not wash well with your conscience, assuming you do have a regard for your fellow human beings?

Capitalilsm...."everyone seems to care". Please explain
1. the "environment was not an issue in the recent federal or provincial elections.
2. Canada has just backed out of the Kyoto Accord
3. The White House has just been found to have blocked/edited environmental information before the American election.
4. In the provincial election, the Green Party hardly addressed environmental issues, even though the Liberals had totally dismissed the Environment Ministry.

Skookum...The business sector did not address environmental concerns because the left took it on as their issue. This is funny. Reading down further in your piece, I think you hit the nail on the head - the right will only get on board if there is money to be made.

Wrong again. The reason Premier Campbell was re-elected was more people voted for him than the other candidates. That is called democracy.

BC dude, Penney Ballem was never the heath minister. Check your facts.

Talk about nitpicking!
Do you ever read a post with the intention of understanding what is expressed?
You were also picking on me, for standing up for those who are not able to post here, why?
Perhaps you do not realize that many people have to choose between medications and food (besides living in very low rent places?)
They are the class i am referring to, people who have no means to buy a computer much less pay for the monthly server charge.
They are however people (at the last definition) and many are indeed struggling to upgrade themselves walking in all weather to whatever free classes may be available.
So, try to not be so snug about your achievements, but as i stated earlier be happy that you made it!
Show compassion and quit belittling those who were not so lucky!
Yes, lucky! anyone could be a victim of an illness! Why not check out how we in this society "help" those who suffer?

I am not picking on you, Gloomy. I was just pointing out:

1. What your party needs to do to actually needs to do in order to form a government.

2. That an individual is infinately better off taking charge of his/her own life than waiting for whatever governmnet is in power to give him/her something.

Gloomy, the great majority of Canadians have made something to their lives. 80% of Canadians make with 80% of the mean household income of %58,000 per year. More than 60%of Canadians have a post secondary degree or diploma and are much better paid because of it:

http://dsp-psd.pwgsc.gc.ca/Collection-R/LoPBdP/BP/bp319-e.htm

The great majority of Canadians live a better life than almost anyone else in the world. My inlaws are all new Canadians and man, are they doing well.

Canadians such as yourself, Gloomy, really have no idea of how well off they are and the oppurtunities they have. One cannot expect to have a high paying job without skills. Those days are over. Go to the SFU campus, for example and have a look at the ethnic mix; white, native born Canadians are in the great minority.

And Gloomy, do some research on how people in say, the Philippines, live. Even better, go there. It would really open your eyes to how well off you really are.

Working Man
You just don't get it, eh?
I know what poverty is, I grew up under the german occupation of Denmark, so quit making assumptions!
The point is not that a lot of canadians are doing well, I know that!
The point is that many have to live for a full month on less than what these "ordinary" canadians spend for an evening partying at Whistler!
That is why i am talking about there being a class distinction here in Canada.
Yes, it is great when an individual is able to fend for himself; again the point is that many are less fortunate and somehow we are deciding that they must be able to survive on a pittance!
I left a "cradle-to-grave" protective society to come to this country, and while i have managed ok, i still remember that in a fairly poor country like Denmark, nobody, and i mean nobody are treated the way we are treating our poor people here in this flagship of free enterprise!

Gloomy, Denmark seems like an excellent place for you. When are you leaving?

That said, they way our "poor people" are treated leads me to this: you can take some into your house.

You have also given your age away. The NDP is a party of the aged now and demographics, both ethnic and age based, are working against against it.

Now, Gloomy, if you want to elect your party to help the poor like you say, perhaps you your party can look inwardly and find a way to get elected.

One more thing, Gloomy. Even at $8.00 an hour, a "poor" person is much better off working than collecting welfare. There are no shortage of minimum wage jobs and the reality is that it is alot better than waiting for a handout.

Perhaps Gloomy can help us understand something. Studies in Denmark show that children of single mother show a greater propensity as teenagers to drug and alcohol abuse. As well, general teenager drinking in Europe;

Is the cradle-to-grave, as you say, society at all responsible, or do you think it's just a Scandinavian Bergmanesque (I know he's from across the strait) sombre gene?

Working man:
Where do you get your imaginary ideas?
Just above here you've posted the most egregious nonsense. To wit: That more than 60% of Canadians have a post secondary degree or diploma.

If they do, most of them got it out of a corn flakes box.

The participation rate for post-secondary education in this country in University increased steadily during the 1970s and 1980s and peaked in 1993 at 24%. There was a distinct drop of two percentage points between 1993 and 1994, and since that time participation rates have been flat at 22 to 23%. College rates also increased throughout the 1970s and 1980s, but displayed a slightly different pattern during the 1990s by continuing to grow (at a much reduced rate). These percentages are measures of student participation for each yearly cohort and do not necessarily imply completion of either a degree or a diploma, by the way.

If you are actually interested in learning something about the relationship between family income, post-secondary education and the impact of high tuition fees on participation, the following pdf file might be of some value:
http://www.statcan.ca/english/research/11F0019MIE/11F0019MIE2003210.pdf

I haven't had the time to check your other so-called 'facts' but I'll wager they are as imaginary as the one pointed out above.

realisticman
I don't know about Denmark, but there was a pretty disgusting exhibition of youthful drinking in Victoria on Canada Day. I'd suggest the problems may well be measured more accurately in Scandinavia because they actually care about their citizens and are trying to do something about the problem.

Here in Canada, we'd much rather live in the ignorant bliss of pretense. A pretense which was pretty rudely shattered for a few unfortunate Transit drivers on July 1 when scores of young people threw up and urinated, among other things, all over the inside of several transit buses and then fought with the police who tried to bring them under control.

Not much to be proud of, I'd say. Further, from my discussions with young people in the schools, I'd suggest the participation rates for young drinkers here are probably a lot worse than those you've cited for Denmark, alas. Factor in drug use and irresponsible driving and I’d say we have a problem about which it would be difficult to be sanguine.

Sorry to keep dragging this debate on, seems certain individuals have difficulties with grasping that there are people who have to survive on less than welfare rates even!
There are scores of sick middleaged people who (if they are lucky) may qualify for some handicap benefit and nothing else!
About the NDP having a large following amongst old people, the explanation is simple: We know what life is like when there is no social justice! We have been there and starved while the rich drove around in Dusenbergs having a great time.
Today, we live in a throw-away society where people (if they are able bodied)can manage to survive by raiding garbage cans.
The desperate need to unite against the greedy bastards is always greater the more suffering goes on.
The result is that today we have a sector of society that barely hang on to life, but are sidetracked by our glorious media to believe that this is the best the world can afford!
Thanks for the advice about where i can go, I have some suggestions for you as well, but they may not be as nice an option.

Any thoughts on 'why', Gloomy? (please see previous post)

Speak for yourself, Gloomy.

realisticman
Teenage drunks?
That and the suicide rates in Sweden?
Frankly there is no sensible reason for either, except that the world as such is degenerating.
When people see how the world is concentrating on all the wrong things, yes, then some simply give up!
Some societies try harder to correct such trends, others just shrug their shoulders.
Working Man
Did you finally run out of garbage to post?
Nothing like a lot of bravado that suddenly disappears when faced with facts!
You are so typical!
When faced with the real poor, just do an about-face and keep going as if they are not there!
They surely will not follow you into your gated community!
The media will not ever remind you of their existence , so why worry?

Why so low in Italy?

I have never had time for weak leaders, the NDP is screaming for a new leader, remember the teachers strike, the so called illegal teachers etc, well I went to the PNE rally , over 5000 folks screaming ready for a fight, ready for a general strike, some NDP MLS's showed up but did they speak, Nada, F**cking cowards, and where was waldo I mean Carole, missing in action. Hiding and watching the polls and being intimidated watching the media and the BC Libs using the courts for political ends. The BC Libs were not being nice but hell the NDP were,

Leaving their core supporters to hang out to dry, all the money and volunteers to resurrect the party. Not a word, Carole should have taken the floor and said

"We the NDP support and respect our teachers, we do not think your criminal and would never sink as low
as the courts to fight our battles, today we stand behind you and so does BC, we will stay out and support a
general strike until this brutal repressive legislation is repealed and the BC Libs start acting like grown up's and come back to the table."

I woud rather die on my feet then live on my knees.

"why so low in Italy"
Perhaps statistics are relative? say drunk compared to what?
Permissiveness may also be more or less depending on the country?
Whatever the reason, it is not a good trend that young people try to avoid facing real life.

Realisticman, why keep us in suspense? Why not share your theory for these stats you keep dragging out? You do have one don't you?

While you're at it, how about explaining the relevance to the topic at hand?

Actually, Stuart, I agree with you. Carole is so weak that she cannot ever form a governemnt. What the NDP needs is a saavy leader like Gary Doer, a man who believes in social justice and who does not take orders from the union bosses.

I can't see that happening happening in BC.

About the general strike thing, that is just rhetorical non-sense. No elected government in this country is ever going to let policy be made in the street, nor should it.

Alcibiades, have a look at the graph on page 31. Note that the graph is cumulative. College participation rate is at about 23% and university at 29% of youths for a total of 62%. I would not have been included when I graduated. Check your facts before you post.

Correction, the rate is 52% but I would not have been included for example, because was over the age of the sample group when I graduated. It also does not include private colleges such as Sprott Shaw and Stienburg.

Working man:
You check your facts.

This is what you posted:

And the statement is demonstrably untrue. First of all the annual cohort of college and university students is a very small proportion of the total Canadian population. You can't add the percentages you do and learn anything about the number of Canadians who have college degrees and/or diplomas because the figures you're adding have absolutely no bearing on the total population. You obviously didn't study either math or statistics and with that kind of reasoning I hope you're not responsible for the structural integrity of the buildings you're constructing.

What an idiot!

Here is the actual data, dummy!
The education profile of the adult population as a whole, that is, of Canadians aged 25 and over. Between 1991 and 2001, the proportion with university credentials grew from 15% to 20%. Another 16% had a college diploma in 2001, up from 12% a decade earlier. The proportion with a trade certificate remained stable at 12%.
Education levels rose for both men and women. In the case of men aged 25 and over, 21% were university graduates in 2001, up from 17% in 1991. The proportion of male college graduates increased from 10% to 13% over the decade.

Did you finally run out of garbage to post?
Nothing like a lot of bravado that suddenly disappears when faced with facts!
You are so typical!
When faced with the real poor, just do an about-face and keep going as if they are not there!
They surely will not follow you into your gated community!
The media will not ever remind you of their existence , so why worry?
Working Man
Did you finally run out of garbage to post?
Nothing like a lot of bravado that suddenly disappears when faced with facts!
You are so typical!
When faced with the real poor, just do an about-face and keep going as if they are not there!
They surely will not follow you into your gated community!
The media will not ever remind you of their existence , so why worry?
Alcibiades, yes i am repeating my latest post, so that the idiot maybe can comprehend that he is outclassed here

No problem Gloomy, some things bear repeating.

Wow, you two sure seem to have a lot of time on your hands. Could thst be why you are "poor?"

Show me where I said that.

On an annual basis, it is but it is cumulative.

Actually, you can because it is cumulative, not absolute.

Since when has Fairview been gated? I haven't seen any.

Like how your party might win elections?

Nope, I pay people to do that. I am not an engineer, rather a CEO.

Anyway, it is all hot air. The NDP will never form a government in its present state, provincially or federally. Nor does it seem to want to.

Well 'working' man, if you don't understand figures any better than you've illustrated above, I won't be surprised to find your company is soon drowning in red ink. I hope the engineers you hire didn’t go to college with you.

Even the least educated among us ought to know that your post that more than 60% of the Canadian population - which is exactly what you wrote - had university or post-secondary degrees or diplomas of some kind was utter nonsense. And of course, it's not cumulative at all. The figures you misused speak only of particular cohorts of students enrolled in colleges and universities in any particular year - they have no cumulative resonance since the base collective figure is constantly changing. As the rest of the data I provided for you shows, this figure varies from year to year - adding it together is meaningless. Further, the data describes only 'enrolled' students and not graduates - or is that too far beyond the competence of a CEO?

Nice to see you can't end a single post without a whine though, you're definitely running true to form. Certainly the NDP has nothing to learn from the likes of you, nor do the rest of us. I wish you’d post your name so wise consumers can steer clear of your products in the market place though.

And that is you are not in government. Nor will you be in the immediate or distant future. It is always vital to enemies. As Ceasar said:

"Keep your friends close and your enemies closer."

Back to work... late pour in the sunshine!

You are not even worthy of being considered an enemy, my friend.

By the way, I've never said I was in government, never implied I represented or was interested in defending the NDP.

I do believe in the truth, something you haven't mastered as yet, apparently.

You might want to check the source of that quote again too, genius; I think you'll find it actually comes from Sun Tzu in The Art of War.

Better check those cost figures again, you may have forgotten to factor in your profit.

Sometimes actions speak louder than words!
No, you did not write that, in fact, suddenly you became very quiet!
So, what you did so, was to make an about face and pretend the discussion never happened.
Losers tend to paint themselves into a corner, just stay there till the paint gets dry enough for you to sneak out.
May i suggest you have so much egg on your face that you should endavour to start as a new poster?
May i suggest a name for you? "weasel" that would be a much better description, than "working man" as you in no way represent any working men on this planet.
Anyway the spin doctors were right, one need to repeat things 3 times before the average smuck begins to pay attention, i posted 3 tiems and finally you woke up! wow

verso, I bought the subject up since Gloomy noted that he lived in Denmark and that they have a, quote "cradle to the grave" social structure. They also have the highest level of youth binge drinking in Europe. Is there a relationship? I wondered if Gloomy could speculate on why youths in Denmark are so self-destructive, particularly since they have a social system that appears to be more like that desired by NDP supporters. The encouraging stats from France and Italy belie the supposition from Gloomy who suggests that it's simply the world degenerating.

The Liberals of BC would, perhaps, envision a social structure somewhat less lavish than that in Denmark and the polls tell us that presently our voters agree with their policy.

Compassion is sometimes seemingly incongruous, as in the directives to not feed wild animals and birds since they loose the capability to fend for themselves. Evidence increasingly exists that this may also apply to humans, and as a society we might be best off if we only assist those who really need help thereby engendering self satisfaction and self worth in those that help themselves.

This is fundemental to the dialogue as to whether the policies of the NDP or those of a more libertarian government are best for society in general.

Perhaps Carole James's compassion is becoming more Liberal too.

Hey, don't worry. Working man will become a socialist the moment we get a recession hard enough to knock the pins out from under construction.

Then we'll hear him spouting off how the government has to create conditions for business to prosper. Which is to say, they should throw our tax money into places where deserving people like himself can pick it up.

The really annoying part is his hypocrisy. He just can't stand seeing someone else helped.

The Olympics is every bit as much welfare as is social assistance, only for some reason the big boys aren't crying about squandered resources on that on. It all depends on which foot the shoe is.

R. Smiley

realisticman
You are asking the same question again.
If France is to great why did their youth burn so many cars?
Whether NDP should aim for a social structure like that in the Scandinavian countries, is strictly a matter of how much we value our less fortunate people.
From experience i can tell you, that many "hopeless" cases have benefitted from the help given to them, and indeed returned to "normal" life, whatever that is.
Considering that we spend so much on corporate welfare bums, the amount it takes to help people in actual need is not great.
Let us just hope that you never get in a position where you can't afford to have access to a computer for instance!
Try imagining having to consider every penny? should i buy the medication i need or feed my child?

Gloomy, read what I wrote. We may be more compassionate if we only help those that really need it. The supposition is that perhaps we try and help too much and it smothers people and they loose the will to help themselves. There has been talk that the Maritimes have had too much so-called financial assistance and thereby they've lost manufacturing and entrepeneurialship.

Check the facts too on exactly which youth were burning cars in France. It was immigrant youth, and children of immigrants that feel excluded from the society and have trouble entering the jobs market. They weren't drowning their sorrows in booze.

realisticman
Yes i do read your posts,and perfectly understand the frustrations when some seem to just sit and wait for help, OK?
Now can you please try to fathom that there are people out there well below what you consider poor?
Somehow i wound up the spokesman for those who have no possibility of ever entering a debate here.
As i see it we cannot allow anyone to fall through the cracks; and if that means we wind up feeding a bunch of lazy people, well so be it!
Gordo/Klein and others have severely cut the welfare rolls and insisted on 40 page documentation from handicapped people who hardly have the stamina to concentrate on that task, so rest assurred that those who are still getting a bit of your tax, most likely deserve it.
Denmark too is full of immigrant kids by the way, and youth rebellion hardly need a cause.
Whether they booze or vandalize, it is a symbol of rebellion.
You may have noticed that we too have rebellious kids?
Blaming a welfare state for the fact that kids worldwide is a spoiled group does not hold water.
There was a time when a family took its heed from the father, and that too was not the best of situations.
So the pendulum swung too far, giving youth so much freedom, that they cannot handle it; what else is new?
People still act like a bunch of sheep, changing direction and charging off the opposite way for no particular reason.
I hope you have your answer? Now tell me how all this is relevant to the discussion here?

Realisticman, you should know something about cultures before you start shooting your mouth off.

The Danes... all the Danes, not just the youth... I met were very proud about having the highest per capita consumption of beer in the world. Whether or not it was true, they believed it, and did their bit.

In other, less auspicious times, Scandinavia "prospered" under a system, with the approval of the Lutheran church, in which wage workers were paid not in money but in alcohol, which they could either drink or sell.

To expect that this would work itself out of a nation overnight, or to blame this on a collective social conscience which subsequently developed, is more than merely disingenuous, although in your case I realize that it was just ignorance.

R. Smiley

Gloomy, the name calling really does not reflect well on you.

That will never happen! By the way, how do you people manage to live in welfare? What is it, something less than $600 a month?

Hey , I weathered the Bleak 1990s and I will weather the next recession, too. I didn't lay off a single employee, either. All it takes is creativity and thinking outside the box.

Which is something you people need to do if you ever want to form a government again. Not going to happen, though.

Can socialists learn from this. No, they can't.

Working Man
I call them as i see them!
A person who debate should have enough balls to admit when he is out of plausible arguments.
You changed the baseline a few times, and even then you got yourself painted into that proverbial corner.
In my book anyone who pretends nothing happened in such a case is a weasel!

I ask a question, as Gloomy noted, so that means that I'm shooting my mouth off about the Danes!

RipponFalls, you seem to be reading-challenged, you might want to consider remedial education.

I asked a few questions since Gloomy said he lived in Denmark and I had read about the high level of teenage drinking, particularly from single-mother homes and wondered if he could provide some perspective.

Please read the posts and try and differentiate between questions that move a debate forward and silly reprimands that have no basis except as wild guesses.

The NDP is not presently particularly popular. Is the traditional social platform espou

cont:

...sed by the NDP loosing favour because it doesn't work?

Are there different ideas to persue that could be more universally popular and GOOD for the society.

This is what people that have lived in other places (Denmark, etc.) might be able to contribute to the debate in a constructive way.

Actually, Gloomy, my point has been exactly the same all along. Read up and you will see it time and time again:

What can your party do so that it can actually win elections and from governments?

Can you actually respond to that? Of course you can't. You would rather call me names.

realisticman
Seems to me that rippon falls provides some insight to the problem you are so interested in.
Yes beer seem to be a favorite beverage there.
That and eating way too much, could well be a reaction to the times when they were denied even the basics?
I have tried to answer your question, are you acknowledging some of my points? or am wasting my effort?
Denmark usually operate with a minority government, and alliances are formed when mutual goals can be found.
Every so often the balance shifts, but with few exceptions the parties agree that it is preferable to spend money on social issues and so prevent more serious problems later on.
Kindergartens are cheaper to operate than jails are, as a for instance!
The largest party is the Social Democrats, the name tells it all!
The NDP is the closest comparison we have in this country!
I suspect that our media over the years have made socialists sound equal to commmunists?
In Europe there is no comparions made as people have experienced the difference!
"Power to the people" may still be the slogan, but the methods of achieving that are like night and day!
If NDP had the money to control the media, the bad rap would disappear and people would understand that the poor are in the majority, and could govern!

Working Man
Were we debating poor people?
Were you not refusing to admit that some are unable to take care of themselves, ?
Did you not just keep suggesting that anyone can better themselves?
When you could no longer avoid responding, you simply disappeared?
OK, so now you want to discuss NDP's startegy? Good! you can read my response to realisticman.
I am not sure i feel like debating with anyone who flees, when the going gets tough!

Working Man
You're still an idiot. Gloomy didn't say that, I did. And I was referring to your ignorant lies about university and college education levels in Canadian society. The point being that anyone who knew so little about figures and statistics probably couldn't balance his own chequebook and might, therefore, forget the profit that is the only thing that means anything to guys like you.

Of course you're not a socialist. Socialists give a damn about something besides money. You are obviously paralyzed with fear that at some point you may no longer have the deal you’re currently getting from your friends in Victoria – because when that happens your own little gravy train may come to an end – as Ripponfalls has also pointed out.

Now, now, boys, is the name calling really necessary? It does not reflect well on you.

Try to chill out a bit. The 26th is not that far off.

You are a hypocrite Working man
And you're the only one here who calls people names to wit – leftists, socialists, lefties etc., etc. Also, I think that I recall a few months ago you falsely accused bob the cat of making a racist remark when he did nothing of the sort. You make no sense in what you say, you post lies and innuendo; you can’t add and you don’t understand statistics – all of which has been demonstrated in black and white during the past few days and you constantly come here to whine. Now who's looking bad?

Gloomy writes:

Well, thanks Gloomy, I've noted your deeply considered and experienced supposition as to why young Danes are prone to binge drinking more than any others in Europe. Nothing to do with, as you say, a "cradle to the grave" social policy. Thank you.

On another of your points; I must say that I am a teeny bit skeptical that state controlled media would be embraced here in BC. You say;

Do we really want that? Make sure you get that on the next NDP platform and let's see if it flies.

Oh, and Alcibiades, go easy on the name-calling a bit, will you? Your constant whining is so juvenile.

Oh and realisticman:
What name calling? I know the truth hurts but a lie is a lie and pretense is even worse. The real name caller, and whiner for that matter, is someone called working man to whom I was responding - which you'd know if you read the material. I haven't said anything to you - until now.

As to your point about ideological control of the media. It's well taken; we certainly aren't being well served by the folks of a certain ideology who are pretty much in control these days.

I take it you'd agree with that.

ideological control of the media.
Of course you are correct!
It is however a fact that if NDP (or any other party) want to win, they need to have the support of the media!
We are unfortunately living in a society where the voters get swayed by the commentary/spin that the media puts out.
Maybe that is why I am GLOOMY?

Have a good day Gloomy.

I suspect if you'd written: 'If the NDP had enough money to get 'fair access' to the media', there'd have been little enough for realisticman to take issue with.

As to Danes and Danish society, they are well recognized for their humane social programs and internationalism for which they have a well-deserved reputation. Good beer too, though, I think, not quite the equal of Czech pivo.

They've also produced wonderful writers and thinkers - Soren Kierkegaard and Ibsen come to mind, among others.

Great idea for Carole James. Thanks to Gloomy and his fellow travellers.

'Electing a New Democrat government will guarantee a fair and newly balanced press for all British Columbians. My government will not pander to the capitalist merchants of lies that only see profit and run our media. My NDP government will use public funds and deficit spending so that we don't have to pay for it, and we will buy and control the media so that young British Columbians and working families in British Columbia, as well as the productivity-challenged of this province will be able to get the right messages, in their newspapers and on their televisions on a daily basis. The New Democratic Party of British Columbia will ensure that all messages coming from the media are the right messages for the well being of the people and the state and our apparatchiks will make it happen', loud applause.

Yeah, Carole, get tough.

Thanx realisticman, Well said As far as the gutless media goes they will be history soon unless they change and become a REAL newspaper (Canwest lol).
Campbell will go down with Bassi & Legislature scandal

realisticman
Just a tad sarcastic are we?
What makes me wonder is why you and that other weasel keep worrying about how Carole should run her campaign?
Neither of you want for NDP to win, so why are you even getting involved?
Do you think that your input has any merit for a party that is looking to win the next election?
What you are blowing out of proportion here, is a hope that the NDP could muster command over the media, just like the backward forces have today!
Is it suddenly B-A-D, should the NDP get that kind of influence over the papers we read and the TV we watch?

It is ancient history, man. Campbell has never been more popular.

realisticman, anyone who does not agree with the off the shelf the dogma is a class enemy. What is really funny here is not one of the NDP supporters here has a single positive contribution as to how their party can win elections. I wonder why they are so afraid of that?

Perhaps they're just smart enough that they've begun to realise that the idealistic days of dreaming of a communist utopia ain't gonna happen. Albania on the Pacific is not the best thing to dream for, and all those manifestos were just a stack of groanspiels written by angry power-mongers to manipulate them to believe that what's someone elses is really theirs. Really bad kharma, in spades. The world is more enlightened and nostalgia for one whopping great commune has crumbled along with the USSR moving to a market economy and China pushing the same door ever wider open; and the China version of nirvana is really nasty if one doesn't fall in line.

Climbing down from the lofty heights of class-envy is so 50's coffee-shopsish, it seemed so groovy, what with all the cuddling and stuff.

Here in Canada even Buzz dumped Jack for Paul, and the present epidemic of labour peace in BC seems to be saying that even the unions have moved on.

Yes, they have. I assume that having the lowest unemployment in 30 years must mean something.

That is assuming you don't wait until the last Wednesday of the month.

Albania on the Pacific
cute!
Proves that you did not read or understand anything

nonWorking Man [It is ancient history, man. Campbell has never been more popular] I am keeping the fire going on this with regards to the BC Legislature Scandal as it seems to have been missed (yeah right) by the Canwest rags & Glo-bull TV.
This site is awesome http://bctrialofbasi-virk.blogspot.com/
This is up to date reality on your Gordo dictator and how many road blocks he & his Crime family have put up to stop or delay & as you try to.
Lowest unemployment, if you look at the slave wages mostly 6-8 bucks an hour casual parttime no benefits, try to rent a basic basement suite on that!
Labour peace? Till September 06!
As far as Gordos popularity goes did U get that from Globalwest or hummm Fraser Institute lol

Doing it by teaching ABC to kids in Korea? Way to go, man!

Maybe for you but not for most. Have a look in the mirror and ask yourself why? BA in basket weaving? South Korea is full of long hairs with usless degrees "teaching" Englishie.

Every public sector union has signed a 5 year contract and the private sector has such a low union rate it does not matter.

Face the facts BC Dude;

Ipsos

Gordon Campbell’s Approval (52%, up 8 points) at Highest Point Since 2001; Approval of Carole James (53%, down 4 points) Continues to Slip
June 22, 2006

Well I've never met a BC Fiberal voter on the street yet, Why? They hangout here!
unWorkingMan, realisticman if you use this idiot generated group for your facts, wow!
No wonder WM brings up Korea as it has nothing to do with this post, no intelligence there why U hanging with the no brainer RM?

http://www.ipsos.ca/about.cfm

What the hell did that mean?

What? You'll meet plenty in downtown Vancouver.

In the meantime, how is your "ABC" song coming along?

dpl

perhaps you might read between the lines... and if you arent capable of that, well then by all means, proceed with the glaringly obvious.

gordon campbell is in power on the basis of lies, canwest global and bctv are responsible for the lions share of those lies.

use bctv to malign bctv... d'uh.

tks,
rjm.

It couldn't be because of NDP policies, could it?

working man

NO

Well said, G West and the reason for your lack of success. You people are so set in your dogmatism you cannot reform yourselves to present a platform that will actually win elections. The Liberal know this and are secure in that knowledge they'll whomp you in 2009.

Any entity that refuses to change is doomed to extinction.

WM
My Lack of success?

What are you talking about?

I'd say you are the entity that is doomed to extinction. Anyone who can't understand a single word response to a rhetorical question is a fool.

You can't even understand that my No was in response to your question - namely that it is not because of NDP policy that they failed (by a very small margin) to defeat the Campbell Liberals in the last provincial election.

You live in a state of delusion so profound that you don't even understand a single word answer. No matter what subject one addesses, you just spit out the same broken - record refrain.

You are laughable.

wm isn't worth the time of day or a reply, I'll bet he also thinks Harper is a good, honest man. Not, no media, muzzaled all his boyz
G Bush buddy he spends more time in US than here. Well when Bush goes down so goes Harpo's neo conservatives
I see Canwest has to advertise the two rags on glo-bull TV! Ha, ha I guess biz is gettin slow for a bought & paid for media by big biz, lies.
"What goes round comes round"
Pay back feels good!
People are getting peed off with all the back room bs, and yes the Basi bull-s people don't forget.