The day after our talk I wrote letters to both Jim and Judy, further explaining my position and challenging them to refute my analysis. Judy has not responded, in the way that Jack Layton did not respond (other than an acknowledgement from his office), but Jim did write me a thoughtful letter, to which I wrote a further reply. At least Jim and I are now engaged in a dialogue, and it’s been helpful in thinking through this complex situation we find ourselves in. In addition to this I have been exchanging opinions and views, by phone and email, with Ed Schreyer and journalist Frances Russell, and with a few of my friends and colleagues. With respect to the 132 letters I wrote to the MPs, I’ve only had two responses – one was an acknowledgement of receipt from an assistant to an NDP MP and the other was a letter from an NDP MP’s assistant who completely misread my letter and berated me for advocating the dissolution of the NDP. On the other hand, by contrast, the response from the public to my published “open letter” article was significantly different. I’ve now received almost a 100 letters from all parts of the country, with three-quarters of them being highly supportive of the idea of a coalition.
Since I wrote my analysis of the 2006 election (the “chilling echo” article) on January 31, my thoughts and views have evolved and changed. This led to the “Open Letter” on March 1, but unfortunately I rushed it and consequently it contains a major flaw. If I had only left it on my desk for a few days I’m sure this would have become evident to me. But the damage is done and now all I can do is some “damage control.” Without thinking it through fully, I mentioned the word “merger.” It was done rather innocently. Initially it seemed to me that if a coalition should work out favourably, over a period of time, if both parties could agree to a progressive, meaningful platform they might then consider a merger. Mulling this over, it suddenly dawned on me that this was totally wrong. Under no circumstances should the NDP ever consider a merger with the Liberals – this would deny Canadians the possibility of an avenue for introducing new progressive, even socialist measures. I’ll try to elaborate on this.
http://thetyee.ca/Views/2006/03/03/NDPandLibs/
[Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on April 19, 2006]
Note: http://thetyee.ca/Views...
A Proposal For An NDP-Liberal Coalition
Posted on Tuesday, April 18 at 10:04 by AnonymousContributed By
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Perhaps progressive Liberals, if there are any, should join the NDP instead of promoting a coalition or outright merger of two very different parties.
The last US presidential elections were a great example of mindbending both at the candidate and the public levels. The best candidate was Kucinic, but he had no chance in hell even to be heard. The final choice of Kerry was kept under tight control not to dare to oppose Bush, because that would have brought on the wrath of big business, with the funds drying up.
The same happened here with the Liberal leadership. Sheila Copps was way ahead of the others with her comments and policy ideas, so she had to be eliminated at any cost, even from running for parliament.
I happen to be a rank and file NDP member and voter, but not a happy one. Not a member for ideological, but practical reasons, as a registration of protest against the present corporately owned governments and hoping for an NDP leadership that will stand up and point it out what really is going on.
An NDP executive member phoned my some time ago, over something I wrote on a closed list. He wasn't a happy camper either. As we talked, I asked him who rally makes the policy decisions that have nothing to do with any resolutions passed by local ridings, like this idiotic "moving to the centre"? Whatever that means, except the appeasement of crooks. His answer was: "Oh, 5 or 6 lawyers in Vancouver".
I have no idea whether this is true, or not, but it seems to me that both the Liberals and the NDP are under the thumbs of economists brainwashed with the same criminal, ruling, theory, who feed them with phony ideas, information and ideological bullshit about the unstoppable forces and glories of globalized, neoclassical market economics.
Now look at the leaders and the policies of the European, Australian, NZ, British Labour and so called social democratic parties and see the same rot all over.
Unless this chain is broken, things will continute to go downhill, until the final collapse. And this chain originates in the corporately controlled universities around the globe, as I have said it many times before, but nobody dares to question them
Ed Deak.
Well, if the impossible happens and the NDP gets into power, you'll get to find out if a union owned government is any better than a "corporately owned" one.