Chretien, Broadbent Brokering Possible Coalition

Maybe the NeoCons can counter by having Mulroney dust off the old jersey and get back into the action as well. I think this will hurt them more than it will help them, but then again, that's the idea.

Chretien just wants to get back in the action now that the Keynesian money cannon and all the irresposible and wasteful spending and crony-greasing that come with it are back in vogue. Maybe Allan Rock will want to come back too so he can set up a billion-dollar knife registry. It mustn't have been fun for Chretien to be PM back when government megaprojects and expensive social engineering programs were out of style.

No doubt there are many elements to all this, but, the likely reason for there timing in all this, up front and early in the new parliament, is easy enough to read and understandable from the partisan Conservative perspective. They are gambling that everyone, especially but not only the Liberals, will agree to almost anything, as they did on many occasions in the last parliament, to avoid another election. (And despite all the talk of a coalition of the so-called "left", though a pretty tepid left, Harper may actually in the end be right. This is a pretty opportunist "tepid left" crew we are talking about here.)

But no doubt they are attempting to stem the tide of so-called reform within the now already "old" neo-liberal capitalism model, even in the face of its economic collapse. (I say "so-called reform", because now it is the tepid centre left that wants to return to the past, even if it is only relatively recently so.) They,the Conservatives along with other extreme conservative elements within the corporate ruling class, on the other hand, fear a return to the old post WW2 order of "Regulated/Welfare State Capitalism. (Which does not include everyone within the ruling class obviously-, hence the success of Obama Mania and all the ruling class money that backed him.)

Harper must now be looking back with some trepidation to the old Progressive Conservatives, which he previously excised from the Canadian body politic, which lingering (still twitching) sentiment may well be actually breathing down his neck. Certainly if "Obamamania" does take serious root here. Which is a very strong likelihood, given the Canadian sentimentality/penchant for aping all things Amerikan.

Coyote

Hmmm, I didn't see the "status quo political herd follower's comment, who fancies himself some kind of an aberrant individualist. This subject certainly deserves more serious treatment than this neocon herd follower is capable of giving it.

This has been coming on for a long time, of course (this centre-tepid left alliance. (Though I must admit that I did not even consider the BQ being a part of it. But which still essentially changes nothing. (The BQ is really just Quebec's NDP, in fact. )

But regardless of what one thinks about it, I think it has been an inevitable development all along. I think the Liberals are coming to understand that their time as an independent, stand alone political party is over. They will now split in some fashion, indeed the process has already begun (Emerson and others. And both ways. Stronach.), with at least "some" going over to the Conservatives and some, possibly the majority, going over to this new centre, tepid centre-left formation.

As for the NDP, this is the fulfilment of their long standing dream, at least of its leadership/right wing, of becoming, in fact, the New Liberal Party.

In this formation, the Bloc is, in fact, going to be, at least temporarily, the "tepid centre-left" faction of this new formation. (The NDP have really just been liberals for a long time.)

Again though, I'll say that this has been a virtually inevitable development now, growing out of what is the unsustainably permanent, though useful for as long as it could be held, maintenance of a minority governance situation in the country. (Which has prevented the more reactionary elements of the ruling class totally imposing its agenda on the majority working class electorate. That line had/has to break sooner or later, however. Harper had hoped to do it, but he has been unable.)

But I think one, certainly from my non-centre left position, and objectively, which will become clear in time I also think, one should be under few illusions that this represents any serious, status quo challenging, social transformation development. It does not. It is but the centrist-tepid left continuation of the status quo in another form. It is a continuation of the attempt to recreate an environment that makes majority government government possible again, and put together a power combination for over-riding the public interest, where and as necessary, to their way of thinking, such as has eluded them and the ruling class all, for too long now.)

Yet I do consider that this likely has to happen, if for no other reason than folks will try everything short of seriously challenging the system and the status quo first, to find a solution to the problems of capitalism, more "safely" and comfortably to themselves, WITHIN the existing status quo system framework. It is a stage the current and evolving world seems to have to go through.

That said, it is, what I would describe for want of better labels, the more seriously "left" view, as is contemptuous of the centre, that such as I would speak from, that there is no solution to the problems of the current world, including the planet, from within any attempt to maintain, reconfigure or kissy-kissy the status quo. Capitalism is going to have to full frontal nudity , tits and balls to the breeze, be taken on, challenged, and prescribed serious, transformative/revolutionary democratic political and economic alternatives.

Short of that, this is destined to be just one more attempt to piss into the wind by the collective elements of the status quo-, such as we were always warned aboard HMC ships, never to do. Still, there are always those as will try, of course.

Yes, there IS going to have to be a united front from centre to the left one day (when the centre is in a quite different, ready to contemplate serious transformation place than it is today), or the transformation as needs to occur really will not happen. This will not be successful however, without there first or eventually being a "serious, non-centre compromised left" component as part of it, that has real, not imagined influence and power, and that left is still largely absent from Canadian politics. (Strangled of its life and buried in the deep woods of still lingering North American McCarthyism, apathy and distrust of all politics generally.) All others have made their compromises with the status quo system, such as has effectively eunuchized them, in my view, and none more than the Liberals and NDP.

And that dared to be said, this proposed centre to piss warm left alliance is going to happen,I have no doubt, sooner or later, barring the unforeseen. Which proves only the reality that the cart is, in fact, often in place before the horse... in real life.

Coyote

"But I think one, certainly from my non-centre left position, and objectively, which will become clear in time I also think, one should be under few illusions that this represents any serious, status quo challenging, social transformation development. It does not. It is but the centrist-tepid left continuation of the status quo in another form."

Oh please. Social democrats are always going to be more successful that hard-left socialist types like you Peyoteman. Why? Because they are parasites, who keep the host (private enterprise) alive to provide the wealth to fund their nanny state. Whereas full-blown socialists or communists gleefully kill the host and feed on the carcass. They become not parasites, but rather carrion-feeders.

Remember that tired old excuse about how the USSR wasn't a "real" communist state because Russia was still too agrarian and not industrialized enough. Well, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Communists need capitalism to create all the infrastructure and institutions which the state (or "the workers") simply confiscate and attempt to keep in operation. Leftists can build industrial or financial capacity. They can only steal that which has been put in place by othets. But eventually the carcass is stripped or meat or the meat goes bad, and the workers' paradise collapses.

But as I've said before Peyoteman, if you can talk the Marxist-Leninists and the Communist Party to work together, I'll start taking you seriously. Until then, keep doodling away on the conceptual drawings for your gulags and leave the hard work to those of us who know how an economy works.

Yea, we see you do. That's why capitalism and its Con advocates are themselves on the ropes, trying to hang on for dear life.

The Lord does indeed work in mysterious ways. Up is down, and down is up, to you wingnut basket cases.

"'The time has come,' the Walrus said,
'To talk of many things:
Of shoes and ships and sealing wax,
Of cabbages and kings,
And why the sea is boiling hot,
And whether pigs have wings.'
(Alice in Wonderland)


Coyote

The more one contemplates this Liberal-NDP-Bloc Coalition, even if the Bloc part of it doesn't hold overlong, the more it becomes clear that what is really being created here is the foundation for a US style, Democratic Party. Now before one pooh-poohs this conclusion, one needs to consider that what is actually being proposed here is precisely that moderate right of centre to tepid left (social democratic) political c0nfiguration, dominated by "liberals", in turn of various hue, found as the main political element in both the Liberal and NDP parties, and the Bloc as well , that objectively considered, is the prescription for the US Democratic Party model.

Chalk it up to the of the centre to piss warm left in Canadian politics. Canada, at least the Capitalist State of Canada, goes fully for the US political model; down to our own Democratic Party. I don't think we need to ask who the Republican Party is in this scenario, do we?

Which actually, when you really think about it honestly, does stay true to character with the central "colonial think" reality of the Canadian populace and the country, at least to here still.

So, while the majority Canadian electoral sentiment that didn't vote for the Conservatives is actually going to finally have its way here, , for its own (the pun not being lost on me), let's face it, there is really nothing of any major new "content" significance here. It is but finally the bringing into line of reality with fact, of what has really been obvious all along: the so-called mainstream left in this country is really merely "liberal" anyway, with its big toe barely over the centre-line, if at all, just like the Imperial Heartland to which it is beholden itself and at whose pleasure and tolerance we continue to be a national state at all.

Out with the Old Chief. In with the New Chief-, who under the face black looks pretty much like the Old Chief.

The main value of this exercise to us on the more seriously, non-centre "transformative" left is, that there is finally clarification of the political realities that have long existed anyway (post the Tommy Douglas CCF) and we will no longer have to live with that old illusion that there was something more to the NDP. It has not been so for a very long time now anyway. And simpliciy through clarification is good. It may even clear the obscuring debris from some alternative doors that need to be examined and considered as potential pathways to the future.

For that, thank goodness, this matter is now out of the way.

Coyote

Oh please. Capitalism will weather this storm, just as it has others. It's not perfect, but clearly better than any alternative that has been offered up thus far.



You might want to replace "more seriously, non-centre 'transformative'" with the more concise and informative "loony". And yes, the NDP is probably much better off without the likes of you. The "left" (especially the far-out types like you) can't organize their way out of a paper bag. You're always too busy bickering amongst yourselves as to whose vision of the workers paradise is the most pure to actually accomplish anything. At least you haven't taken to ventilating each other's skulls with icepicks.

If this NDP-Liberal coalition does go through, it will undoubtedly be a time warp back to the seventies. The PC thuggery and spendthrift nature of the NDP combined with the sleaze and arrogance of the Liberal Party will make Canadians beg Harper to come back to 24 Sussex. Although in the interim, it might be a good time to buy Bombardier stock.

When Mr Harper first came to power he selected the old Harris Tories to major positions, Flaherty and Baird being the two best known. Having lived through the Harris regime, that was enough to convince me that I never would vote Tory. However as time went on I began to think that Harper was much more reasonable than Harris had been and I began to listen to his message. When Flaherty came out with his latest fiscal update I couldn't believe my ears, we were right back into the Harris tradition, bullying, pouncing on any perceived weakness, dividing the country even more than usual. What an idiotic set of suggestions; asking the Liberals and NDP to cut their own funds, removing the public service right to strike (no doubt setting the public service up for future job cuts) and offering no ideas on how the crisis in the auto industry might be handled. I wonder whose ideas they were because they certainly show a complete lack of common sense. I'm now back at square one firmly convinced that these are indeed Harris Tories and no longer worth a vote.