Evening Star

I saw no point at all to the protests, actually. However, the violation of peoples' civil rights - regardless of how empty their protests may have seemed to me - is easily amongst the most distressing things I've seen in my own country in my lifetime.

August and KIS, regardless of this one case, there is plenty of video evidence of police beating or shooting totally peaceful protesters or even bystanders. It is completely indefensible. What is the defence for the sheer number of arrests? For the treatment of people with medical conditions? The Black Bloc was the provocation?? No one has estimated their number to be anything close to significant. Besides, when there actually was vandalism, the police were thoroughly ineffective at doing anything about it.

Thanks! I was streaming on the CBC site.

WTF was with her question just now? "We need to remember that unions are not always perfect and corporations are not always evil"? Is she filibustering too now? -- Heh, I guess I need to remember that she's probably completely sleep-deprived by now.

Admittedly, the NDP haven't helped themselves out much by failing to drop that Commie stuff from the preamble to the party constitution.

If someone were truly cynical and Machiavellian, he or she might deliberately do this in order to further marginalize the Opposition and paint them as dangerous radicals. That would be cynical and Machiavellian though.

I couldn't even find a French-language stream of the whole debate, actually. (I'm streaming. I don't have TV.)

Very well put, cybercoma. Ugh, I can't stand Candace Hoeppner.

Btw, is there a live stream of this that is bilingual with no translators?

Well, yeah, they wouldn't ask questions after each speech and raise points of order if they didn't want to drag things out. They're filibustering their own bill! Cybercoma makes a good point though.

Yeah, I always thought the NDP's goal is to buy more time for the parties to resolve their negotiations instead of having a settlement imposed on them.

Respect if you've been watching this for 40h straight. Maybe I'll pick up some beers and join in if they're still going this evening.

No? It would be a little weak to fight it this long and then just give up, wouldn't it? Of course, the CPC could speed things up by not asking questions, if that's what they want...

Dude, I like a good beer but even I didn't start drinking before 11 am!

Pegasus, have you been voting NDP for 20 years because you thought they were in favour of bringing unionized public sector compensation closer to the poverty line? You're disillusioned because they're fighting for the middle class?

We saw how well an excess of 'pragmatism' (at least in the sense of desperately trying to be all things to all people and always play to the middle) over principle worked out for the Liberals in the end.

I do see where you're coming from and you may be right. At the same time, my guess is that they're trying to solidify their labour support and especially their base in QC, the most union-happy province in the country. Maintaining this solid core base of contributors and volunteers (and likely long-term voters) may prove more valuable in the long run, when the general public has moved on from this specific issue in four years. Rob Russo made the very salient point on P&P that the Conservatives could have easily shortened this by not asking questions. They seem to want this to drag on as well, since their base (and probably a majority of the public) will likely grow more frustrated with the Opposition as it goes on.

I mean, you're right, but that's part of what makes this exciting for me in a weird way. I think I actually respect them more for standing up for this cause despite the public mood.

Do you mean that they shouldn't be doing this at all or just that the content of the speeches fails to resonate? I couldn't really see the NDP backing back-to-work legislation. And I'm guessing their (current) QC base does tend to side with the unions.

The debate is fun (to tune in on and off)! Pat Martin's and Glen Thibeault's speeches were epic.

I'm no economist but what I've read is much less clear-cut than this. I've seen economists argue both sides. I actually do think, in general, that business taxes should not be too onerous and would favour higher personal income taxes and inheritance taxes. However, our corporate taxes are already comparatively low, relative to other countries'. It's hard to say whether we'd benefit from lowering them any further at this point.

(OK, I'm done. For now.)

Ah, you may not have felt the rising force of the workers yet; in post #8, however, CPCFTW shows a perceptiveness that is rare among the ruling class...

I'm going to i) break character and write something serious and ii) register a rare moment of disagreement with you, TB. When we're no longer talking about collectivized ownership (as opposed to taxing and regulating private ownership) of the commanding heights of the economy with an actual alteration of the fundamental power structures and property relations in capitalism, we're no longer talking about socialism in any classic sense, right? We're just talking about varying degrees of government intervention within capitalism, I would think? The difference between Clement Attlee's Labour and Tony Blair's Labour seems pretty profound to me, more so than the difference between New Labour and the UK Conservatives, actually (or between the CPC and NDP).

I'm glad someone recognizes the socialist critique implicit in the Vancouver riots. Even the lumpenproletariat is being swept into the revolution.