Wild Bill

Now you're getting near the pith of it, Bonam! The more socialistic a country the more it tends to discourage entrepreneurship. An extreme example would be Stalinist Russia. Several times in his history Stalin recognized that his economy was shot and his people were starving. Not that this truly bothered him but when things like that go on for too long people start to blame those on top, like him! So he would relax the reins and let entrepreneurs go to town. Very quickly things would be humming along tickety-boo. Stalin of course would take all the credit. Once the heat was off Uncle Joe would haul back on the reins and confiscate the businesses generated by the "nouveaux riche". Any that complained would be locked up as "lackeys of the running dog capitalists", or whatever. Back to the old Stalinist status quo until the next time he figured his economy needed a shot in the arm. Sounds to me like we're talking some parallels here. A socialist government decides that it needs more entrepreneurship, since its own policies have stamped it out. So it comes up with a form of capitalism that it can control. Seems a bit too much of a "Catch-22" to be very successful. Let's look back at how they're doing in a couple of years.

***ALERT! ALERT! ANECDOTE! ANECDOTE! ALERT! ALERT!*** Now that that's out of the way, I thought a personal anecdote based on some real world experience might be useful here. Like Kimmy, I too once worked in construction. I still have many friends and acquaintances in the field who offer me the benefit of their perspective. When Kimmy says there are a dearth of visible minorities among construction workers, it's absolutely true! Personal observations overwhelmingly bear this out. Eppur si muove! If you want to argue against this you are arguing against what anyone can touch or see for themselves. Taking an official survey would only prove the obvious. There ARE a large number of East Indians and Pakistanis, but they almost always are engineers or technicians. Almost never are they "grunts". While their drive to better themselves is commendable, there's more to the reasons why they are not found to be better represented across the spectrum. Here's the elephant in the room, that no one politically correct wants to mention. It's cultural! They don't like to do hard physical labour! Everyone who works with this cultural group soon finds this out. What's more, the fact that it only is strongly evident with newcomers and first generations is even more proof that it's cultural. Second and third generation workers seem to have lost much if not all of this cultural trait and are usually indistinguishable from any other demographic in the work force. There's a strong tendency in society to think that all cultures are the same. I vividly remember the irony of Canadian girls who worked at a local coffee shop run by "old world" Greeks. These girls were just typical young Canadians. They would laugh and flirt with us boys, sometimes sitting for a moment in our laps and then they'd be up and off to buss a table or whatever. The old Greeks who hung around would see this and there would begin a problem. In their culture, there were really only two categories of women - family and whores! They instantly assumed that these Canadian girls must be whores so when they got the chance they would rather aggressively put the moves on them! The girls of course were horrified! Many just quit, others vigorously defended their honour. It got so bad that the local police got in the habit of coming in at random over the night shift and poking their noses into the back kitchen, just to be sure the girls were all right. All cultures are NOT the same! What's more, sometimes cultures clash! I invite anyone who thinks my example was merely a generalization to let their own daughter take a job in a similar environment. My own elderly Italian-born mother-in-law caused a diplomatic problem with the local taxi company. Whenever she needed a cab to go get here groceries, she would always say (in an Italian accent so thick as to be hard to understand) "I want no Pakis!" By this she meant she didn't want an East Indian driver. The dispatchers were always horrified and told her that she was wrong to make that request. She didn't care in the slightest! None of them ever asked her WHY she was taking that position, but I did. It was quite simple and had nothing to do with simple racism. It was purely cultural. She was very old and when she got home she needed help getting her groceries in the house. East Indian drivers were the only ones who consistently refused to help her! They always had some excuse like "Sorry! I have a bad back!" They would sit in their cab while she struggled to get her groceries out of the trunk, with the meter running! I don't know if it was a cultural attitude towards women, a sense of status as to who was the driver and who was merely the fare or simple male laziness. My mother-in-law didn't think that deeply about it and didn't care. All she wanted was help with her groceries! Sadly, the taxi company eventually took the position that they would NOT let her have any choice in drivers. She would have to take whoever she got. Sounds very fair and non-racist but to her it left her with no choice. She could no longer use a cab to get groceries on her own. She had to get someone in the family to drive her and help her with the carrying, when they were available. Employers today have the problem of being fair in hiring while at the same time minimizing cultural conflicts amongst their workforce. Conflicts based purely on race obviously should not be allowed but what about cultural habits?

I'll give him a C. He passes, but nothing especially noteworthy. The real problem is, he's boring! It's just that the others are either less competent or MORE boring! You know, a good sex scandal might actually be good for him! Canadians would probably like him MORE!

I'm with you, Molly. I know that there's some evidence that they work but the fact that that they work doesn't mean they SHOULD be used! I also remember how the Liberals used the tactics first against the Reform Party, not always with actual ads but certainly with very effective "whisper campaigns". I mean, there's no way so much negative stereotyping of the typical Reformer could have arisen on its own! The hand of a Warren Kinsella type seems obvious. Yet to me, it still doesn't matter. Such ads seem mean-spirited, rude and low-brow! I just don't like them, from any party. Somebody should take the "high road" and I would hope Canadians would reward them for it.

Maybe, I dunno. I can only speak for what I myself saw with Reform. Manning used to say that if you show people a flame you have to expect a few moths. I saw my share of what I considered "wingnuts" come out to meetings but most didn't stick around when they found out that not only was the party not extreme enough for them but because it was populist based, building policy directly from the members, they knew that it would NEVER become extreme enough to suit them! Even if they laid low and weaseled their way into leadership positions they would not be able to shanghai the party to go their way. Its very populist structure prevented that. I kept hearing about all these bible-thumping fundamentalists but I never actually met one. Maybe there were some out West. Again, I dunno. I do know that all the policy that came out of the workshops actually seemed fairly middle of the road! Yet to this day I still run into people that have got some cockamamie ideas about Reformers that seem cribbed directly from some Jean Chretien comic book. I guess it makes for a better story if you embellish it! And you wonder why "rightwingers" seem a bit thin-skinned at times?

Well, I'm the "Utilitarian" of this board. I respect whatever actually WORKS! Good luck to you! Let's see where you are a year or so from now...

Obviously, you don't know the difference between a party's stance on a particular issue and an actual policy plank. The Reform/Alliance party had a formal, written party platform, concerning things like right to recall, that party policy would come from grassroots workshops and be binding on the leadership, that MPs would be expected to vote according to the majority wishes of their constituents and NOT according to their own conscience or according to the party's stance. The Alliance never had anything one way or the other about gay marriage or abortion in their party platform. They did this deliberately! Later, they mostly voted against a Liberal Bill because at the time most of them were representing ridings where that was the popular will. None of them were MPs for Toronto urban ridings so that was not surprising. You seem to spit a lot of stuff off the top of your head. This will make drumming up support more of a challenge. If you're going to make comparisons it might be more effective if you research them a bit, instead of relying on stereotypes.

You say this yet again, that the CPC is closer to the old Alliance party, yet you give zip all in specifics to back it up! Could you name some Alliance party planks that are actually being PRACTICED by the present CPC? I've been watching since the merger and I've yet to see ANY trace of Reform/Alliance in the CPC. Actions speak louder than words and the CPC doesn't look any different from Mulroney's party to me. If I'm wrong and you're right, how about some specifics? Instead of just cheerleading.

Look a little deeper and don't be so quick to decide. EVERY new party attracts those kooks! It's like moths to a flame! Those guys could never win support on their own so when they see someone else being successful at starting up a new party they all try to hijack the bus and get a free ride. So new parties have to go through a culling process. It's hard at first because you're so desperate for volunteers and new members that no one is checking newbies out that carefully. However, as time goes on and you work beside these people you begin to learn what their true colours are and you can start weeding them out. It WILL happen to your party, too! If you put enough effort into the culling you'll get through it ok. You'll have to put up with your opponents trying to label your entire party as being made up of those wingnuts but that's politics. If you just keep cleaning your nose eventually it will die down. Reform actually went into an election and discovered that their nominated candidate had a white hood in his closet! It was too late to name another candidate so the Party turfed him out anyway, choosing to give up the riding rather than have a guy like that in their Party, let alone an MP. Meanwhile, the Liberals had a similar situation where one of their candidates was revealed to be mired in scandal. Their decision? They let him run! "What are we supposed to do?" they cried. " It's too late to get anyone else!" In the end, character will win out.

Yeah, I vividly remember those times, too! Only my perspective was a bit different. The PCs were essentially dead everywhere but in Atlantic Canada. They had crawled back from 2 seats to finally getting enough to be considered a legal party. They showed NO signs of any huge underground feeling among voters to vote for them again, at least not as long as Reform/Alliance was around. The Alliance had a firm grip on their seats and added a few more every election. Odds were that in another couple of terms the PCs would have either totally died away or morphed into the APC, since they had become an Atlantic ONLY party! Those few supporters they had left were no doubt very loyal and had strong dreams of a rebirth but the real world showed no sign of agreeing with them! You must also remember that in those days the antipathy in English Canada towards Brian Mulroney was so deep you could shovel it! He was the one who tarnished the PC party's name, more than anything else. It is rumoured that Manning was ecstatic when Mulroney gave that F-18 contract to a Quebec firm when Winnipeg had the clear most experienced and cheapest bidder! That was the catalyst that launched Reform. You can debate all the fine points of who was dishonest and who screwed whom all you want but it really doesn't matter. The PCs were no longer electable! Certainly David Orchard had no hope at all of becoming Opposition Leader, let alone PM. If he had kept his PC party together and held the leadership all he would have achieved was to be a small frog in a VERY small pond! Perhaps he could have gotten enough seats from time to time to be a spiteful spoiler against the Alliance taking power but that would have been about it.

I could of course be wrong but you seem to be repeatedly saying that your promises and ideas are so appealing to the general populace that if you can just get the word out things will "bootstrap" themselves, support will pour in and your party will instantly grow out of the fringes into a serious force to be reckoned. You keep stressing the dream but not the details, the sizzle but not the steak. I wish you luck. I always applaud citizens who take political initiative of any kind. Still, I think it would serve you well to get some people with access to money and with true political experience as fast as possible! Otherwise, you are never going to get off the ground. Every fringe party thinks that their message is "super appealing". Almost always they are just fooling themselves. Or they don't understand that a message that no one hears is like the old poser "If a tree falls in the forest..." Most fringe parties stay fringe parties forever! With good reason. Even those with a good message.

:lol:

You have stated in a number of your posts that your party will guarantee more voter participation. You implied a SIGNIFICANT increase in voter participation. Now we find you are not even yet a fringe party. On what do you base your guarantee? A guarantee is not a promise or an estimate. It is not an opinion. Could you perhaps have used the wrong word? Or are we missing something?

Hear! Hear! We will have peace in our time!

Good idea, but maybe we should take a tip from The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy and first make a 'B' list...

You caught that too, eh? It's obvious that like most reality shows, the entire thing is staged! It's all 'Hollywood'. We only see the miners and their families but there is at least an entire film crew on site! Someone has scripted what's gonna happen each episode. Every so often you need some conflict, so one guy will flaunt the safety rules or challenge the leader's authority. The problem with this show is that the writing is really kind of lameass! The conflict situations and the character reactions are too simplistic. Even the bears are poor actors! How they act doesn't jive with what experienced people like yourself know to be true. Deep down everyone knows that it's just a show but the premise is to make it appear real, especially with a reality show. Star Trek pioneered the use of 'technobabble', where they wouldn't just ignore some Law of Physics but would give some technically sounding reason why the warp drive worked. The explanation was in the main bogus but it was enough to support the 'suspension of disbelief' that allows us to accept and enjoy the story. 'Gold Rush' seems to have poor 'technobabble'. The mining and money premises don't jive, the actions of the bears doesn't jive and the personal interaction of the characters doesn't jive. I guess what I'm really talking about is plain old bad writing!

So you equate 'elite' with 'rich'. Well, that's your POV and you're entitled to it. Myself, it means those in power, who run things. I saw your premise as just another party that treats its members as mules, or plebes while the 'boys on top' determine the policies. By that definition, you still haven't explained how I'm wrong.

You have to understand the situation, AW. This show revolves around a mining camp, with cabins and RVs for the miners and their wives and children to live in. The camp is literally just bulldozed out of the bush and bears can just waltz out of the trees and into their camp whenever they please. Apparently, the local law is such that only one miner can just up and shoot a bear, although if threatened anyone can shoot to defend themselves. The bears aren't stupid and can learn about open garbage very quickly. Black bears are smaller and may seem more of a nuisance but they can and have attacked dogs and small children, even some adults. The larger grizzlies are HUGE! They can tear a man apart with one good swipe of their claws. A child wouldn't have a chance. What's more, bears can be blindingly fast! Turn your eyes away from your child for just a moment and he could be dead. So the last thing you want is for bears to get the idea that you have free garbage food lying around, or that your dogs and kids are potential prey. Once a bear starts coming around he will never likely be deterred. If you have a helicopter you might drop him a hundred miles away but failing that the only practical thing is to shoot him. Much better to never leave garbage out for him to learn about at all! We all love and respect animals but if it's a choice between your children or the bear...

Please don't misunderstand me! You have every right to form a party and I support that right! The same goes for 'ccen' and his 'in between the other guys' party. That being said, that doesn't mean I think your party or his will accomplish your goals. Or even be successful enough to make a good try. I was heavily involved with the Reform Party and I know first hand how difficult it is to launch a new party. That Manning accomplished as much as he did in such a relatively short time frame was simply astonishing. The biggest problem is money! Reform had some strong backers in the beginning and they also worked very hard on donations practically from Day 1. Meetings and rallies every few weeks, with an empty KFC bucket passed around at every one. Volunteers pressed into phone calling, asking for donations. Everything costs money, from paper and pens to printing brochures. Those brochures need envelopes and stamps. The next problem is a clear message. People are not going to open their wallets or volunteer their time unless they know exactly why they're doing it! A vague message or goal won't cut it. Promises that things will be 'explained later' also won't cut it. You can't give any guarantee that if someone gives you money today he will be happy with your message when it is finally out in the open. Ccen has already done that, at least for someone like me. When he started talking about fiscal conservatism I was interested but when he talked about cutting military support I lost interest. The military is an important interest of mine and when asking me for support his party's position would be a deal breaker for me. The third concern will be HOW you develop your party's policies! Are you going to have a populist party and have policies driven from the membership, like Reform? Or are you going to have your party leadership present a "Party Platform", like Moses and his Tablets coming down from Mt. Sinai? You'd best get it all together beforehand or else it can prove too late. It's like getting a tattoo. Once you get branded it's nearly impossible to change people's perceptions of you. There are advantages and disadvantages to both Top and Bottom driven policy but what you choose WILL change the demographics of your potential support! Best if you thoroughly understand that so that you can choose your best targets to focus on. The idea that you can just put up a webpage and get a few folks to sign up is not nearly enough. If you want to challenge the 'big boys' you need to have 'big boy' resources. Moreover, if a new party cannot garner enough money from its supporters it will not be taken seriously. This might make the Liberals, the Bloc and the NDP look like hypocrites but hey, they're politicians! It won't bother them! If you intend merely to be a regional party then you are putting yourself under a serious challenge. The odds of being able to control an entire region's seats are pretty slim. Even the Bloc doesn't control ALL Quebec seats! In the Maritimes you will have an additional challenge. If you are chartered to forever be a regional party then you can never be the ruling party. This means that unless you happen to end up after a particular election with a HUGE number of seats to offer a minority government you will have no power at all! The other parties will simply ignore you. Most voters understand this and it WILL influence if they will vote for you! It's part of why parties like the NDP effectively have a cap on their level of support. Too many voters know that an opposition MP rarely has any power. He can have a very effective riding office that will do a bang up job helping constituents with their EI and other government bureaucracy snags (my area has and has had a number of NDP MPs and MPPs - their offices have frankly far outshone those of their rivals in those areas!) but an opposition member just can't "deliver the pork", or anything of substance like money for a new bridge, building or project. The ruling party has ALL such power! Jean Chretien filled his riding with a whole BUNCH of canoe museums. An opposition member would be lucky to get a canoe! I realize that both of your parties are in their infancy and will no doubt be better fleshed out over the months ahead. I'm just suggesting you study your history and not waste your time and money re-inventing the wheel.

Why, just look at Italy, for example!

Yeah, I particularly get a kick out of the 'leader'. Every time someone challenges him on an issue his first response is always "Shut up or I will hit you!" That sort of approach would totally lose my confidence!

I'm sorry, but I happen to LIKE a formal, written party platform! What you suggest sounds more to me like blind faith and and a blank cheque to a party's leadership, which too often is a synonym for 'elite'. Are you asking folks to become members of a political party or of a church?

Interesting. I read your links - they say almost nothing in detail about your party planks or platform. Just some comparisions "We're a bit like this party and a bit like that". You repeatedly stress a bond to the old PC party and now you rail against the merger. I left the PC party because I was very dissatisfied with how non-populist and elitist it was structured and was one of the first memberships for Reform in Ontario. Now, some time after the merger I see virtually no trace of Reform in the present CPC party. For all intents and purposes, it is being run very much like a clone of Mulroney's old party. So from my POV, what the hell are you complaining about? The little rump of the PCs, which was rejected by millions of its former supporters in favour of Reform, ends up running the new merged party and burying everything Reform stood for! If we argued long enough we might come up with one Reform plank that is still part of the CPC platform but I don't think we could ever find 3! As a matter of fact, do the present Tories HAVE a codified platform? Reform developed policies from grassroots workshops of members that were binding on the party leadership. From the CPC website all I could find was a list of motherhood "beliefs", not binding on anyone or anything! That was the way things were with Mulroney and before - the party brass expected us mules to bang in those campaign signs and drum up those donations but when it came to policy we were to just shut up and they would get around to telling us what it was going to be. I can only speak for myself but I left the Progressive Conservatives for what seemed to me to be good reasons. Now someone like you shows up and wants me to re-enlist! No thanks! I have enough trouble holding my nose to vote for Harper. When you post Joe Clark as some kind of role model for me to support I'm afraid I just can't seal my nostrils well enough to do it!

Did they promise to steal our money, a la AdScam?

I don't know where to start, Michael. You have so many untruths and halftruths in your reply! First, I said they respected him for keeping promises. YOU say that he intended to reduce union workers incomes! YOU say he was against unions!I don't believe that was ever the case. Certainly, he said he intended to reduce TAXES, or at least stop their advance. Particularly at that time there was a widespread perception that we were being taxed to death. Lowering taxes means more disposable income. I would agree that he had a problem with government and the teachers union. A LOT of people did and still do! As I said, the idea that factory workers, particularly because they are in the private sector, feel an automatic kinship with their public sector counterparts is not substantiated. Some do, some don't. It's a mix just like any other folks. I know that with my father and my steel worker friends there was much antipathy against the teachers and CUPE. In many cases those members were paid much better than steelworkers and were NOT perceived as working just as hard! Rather, they were often seen as the agents of higher and higher taxes! A leader like Harris could only capitalize on such resentment. Are you still going on about Walkerton? For Pete's Sake, Harris DID NOT HIRE THE KOEBELS! Stan and Frank were hired by the Town of Walkerton themselves and had 3 decades of on-the-job experience before they screwed up so badly! All Harris had done was to cut back some funding. Even if he had left it alone, the Koebels would STILL have caused the water to be poisoned! And it STILL would not have been reported in time because Stan and Frank LIED on their reports! What did you expect? An inspector watching an inspector watching an inspector watching an inspector? How far does it go? If you want to blame someone first blame Stan and then Frank. They committed the sin. Then blame the Walkerton Council. They hired Stan with no training and let him hire his relation and never checked up on him until it was too late. The only reason people are blaming Harris is because McGuinty successfully heaped enough dirt upon him! I swear some people think that Harris put a gun to Stan's head personally and forced him to poison the wells! To this day I NEVER hear ANY blame put on Stan and Frank! It's ALL on Harris! That's just not logical. It's all ad hominem, partisan crap! Me, I would have HUNG both Koebels! Babies died directly because of them! As for Manning, you really should google up how many votes Manning was getting in Ontario by the time he lost the leadership. To say Reform never got a foothold is just plain wrong. For the short time they had been at it the numbers clearly show that in another election or two they might have been there! As for not offering the people the choice they want, what's new about that? Remember, there are power brokers in every party who have their own vision of what the party values should be. They want to win but NOT at the expense of what they believe the party should stand for! So they fool themselves into thinking that they can win with their own 'personal' type of leader. For proof I submit the NDP! They could win far more seats if they only changed some of their values. They have never even won power in Ottawa, let alone winning majorities like Mulroney, Trudeau or Harris did. Surely in the past few decades there have been NDP leadership candidates who were more like Tony Blair but they never got the chance to change anything about their party.