NDP supports jailing youth and funding corporate criminals
The New Democratic Party recently revealed it would like to fund 2500 more cops, give more money to prosecution (which will only further criminalize and limit the options of youth) and keep military spending at the same level as the Conservatives! The NDP is supposed to be the most "progressive" of the three parties. The truth is it is the most progressive. And that's not only deplorable, it's also unacceptable.
Even former NDP organizers, Andrew Klochek and Michael Laxer think that the NDP "would do nothing to alter the political economy of the country" and that "the time has come to fight state capitalism itself."
Boycott the elections! Let's fight the whole system!
The following is excerpted from a recent article Klochek and Laxer wrote for rabble.ca, the full text of which is available here.
Over the last 40 years, the ideology of neo-liberalism has won every battle in its attempts to reshape our society...
With the willing complicity of our self-proclaimed voices of the left, we have instituted a system of socialism and welfare for the rich. The effect of this political order is to prop up the failures of our societies' wealthiest while abandoning everyone else, including our societies' most vulnerable, by stealing tens of millions of their dollars to fund CEO slush funds and salaries.
While workers were forced to make concessions and millions of them lost their jobs, CEO's salaries went nowhere but up, all subsidized by your tax dollars. Instead of using the power of government to declare war on poverty, we have declared war on the poor and the middle class.
The issue is not that the NDP supported stimulus spending in order to save jobs. The issue is that in supporting these measures, they did so without actively calling for fundamental changes to the system that required bailouts in the first place. As a result, in the final analysis they basically called for the government to back up the tremendous social inequality that is represented by these same CEOs who forced this bailout and yet are now making over 150 times what the average worker does.
...
In the face of this system, the NDP, which once articulated a vision for an alternative economic order, now merely argues for changes that are cosmetic, not structural. Rather than help organize citizens at grassroots levels to fight this assault in their communities, they offer band-aid solutions while editing their language and image in the vain hope that they can marginally increase their seat total in an election which, even if they won, would do nothing to alter the political-economy of the country....
The time has come to fight, not individual aspects of the state-capitalist system, but rather State Capitalism itself. The time has come to fight against the corporations that have moved our jobs to China, impoverishing workers there while destroying jobs at home. The time has come to fight against the system that has ensured that many of our fellow citizens work most of their lives in temporary labour without health insurance or retirement benefits. The time has come to stand up against the neo-feudalism that creates a society where individual debt is at an all time high while CEOs, "movie stars" and entertainers earn more in a day than most hard-working Canadians will in a year or even a decade, and where they get totally different treatment by the legal system. Rest assured, if the person who stole the $50 TV out of your house is caught they will likely go to jail as opposed to an investment banker who screwed people out of their entire livelihoods.
The time has come to stand up against the daily violence of the system with its destruction of good jobs in Canada and its entrenchment of poverty in the third world, all designed to satisfy an unsustainable consumerism.
...An organized grassroots movement can alter the political landscape more effectively than a political party that won an election on a platform patched together from focus groups and pollsters. Focusing on short-term electoral victory may bring more immediate gratification compared with the hard work of building a grassroots movement that will reawaken opposition to the existing socio-economic order. But where has this led us? The left has done focused on short-termism for 30 years and we have only lost.
There is an alternative.
The New Democratic Party recently revealed it would like to fund 2500 more cops, give more money to prosecution (which will only further criminalize and limit the options of youth) and keep military spending at the same level as the Conservatives! The NDP is supposed to be the most "progressive" of the three parties. The truth is it is the most progressive. And that's not only deplorable, it's also unacceptable.
Even former NDP organizers, Andrew Klochek and Michael Laxer think that the NDP "would do nothing to alter the political economy of the country" and that "the time has come to fight state capitalism itself."
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| The old white boy's club: Jack Layton (L) is just like the rest! |
The following is excerpted from a recent article Klochek and Laxer wrote for rabble.ca, the full text of which is available here.
Over the last 40 years, the ideology of neo-liberalism has won every battle in its attempts to reshape our society...
With the willing complicity of our self-proclaimed voices of the left, we have instituted a system of socialism and welfare for the rich. The effect of this political order is to prop up the failures of our societies' wealthiest while abandoning everyone else, including our societies' most vulnerable, by stealing tens of millions of their dollars to fund CEO slush funds and salaries.
While workers were forced to make concessions and millions of them lost their jobs, CEO's salaries went nowhere but up, all subsidized by your tax dollars. Instead of using the power of government to declare war on poverty, we have declared war on the poor and the middle class.
The issue is not that the NDP supported stimulus spending in order to save jobs. The issue is that in supporting these measures, they did so without actively calling for fundamental changes to the system that required bailouts in the first place. As a result, in the final analysis they basically called for the government to back up the tremendous social inequality that is represented by these same CEOs who forced this bailout and yet are now making over 150 times what the average worker does.
...
In the face of this system, the NDP, which once articulated a vision for an alternative economic order, now merely argues for changes that are cosmetic, not structural. Rather than help organize citizens at grassroots levels to fight this assault in their communities, they offer band-aid solutions while editing their language and image in the vain hope that they can marginally increase their seat total in an election which, even if they won, would do nothing to alter the political-economy of the country....
The time has come to fight, not individual aspects of the state-capitalist system, but rather State Capitalism itself. The time has come to fight against the corporations that have moved our jobs to China, impoverishing workers there while destroying jobs at home. The time has come to fight against the system that has ensured that many of our fellow citizens work most of their lives in temporary labour without health insurance or retirement benefits. The time has come to stand up against the neo-feudalism that creates a society where individual debt is at an all time high while CEOs, "movie stars" and entertainers earn more in a day than most hard-working Canadians will in a year or even a decade, and where they get totally different treatment by the legal system. Rest assured, if the person who stole the $50 TV out of your house is caught they will likely go to jail as opposed to an investment banker who screwed people out of their entire livelihoods.
The time has come to stand up against the daily violence of the system with its destruction of good jobs in Canada and its entrenchment of poverty in the third world, all designed to satisfy an unsustainable consumerism.
...An organized grassroots movement can alter the political landscape more effectively than a political party that won an election on a platform patched together from focus groups and pollsters. Focusing on short-term electoral victory may bring more immediate gratification compared with the hard work of building a grassroots movement that will reawaken opposition to the existing socio-economic order. But where has this led us? The left has done focused on short-termism for 30 years and we have only lost.
There is an alternative.
you can go to Rabble.ca and expect anything other the a bunch of sell outs trying to maintain their current social status.
ReplyDeleteI've tried for years, explaining what you have stated on deaf ears.