I apologize if I offended Tom by my somewhat immoderate response to his posting. For Sid's benefit, I will quote the original comment that prompted my frustrated response. >Here in Canada, the social-democratic NDP abstains from even its own >social-democratic, electoral politics in a vain attempt to be seen >as a voice of moderation. The NDP appeal in the current election >coes down to nostalgia for the 1970s -- a presumably brighter, >happier, more innocent time. If you liked the Partridge Family, >you'll love the NDP. The PF was "wholesome" psychedelia without >drugs. The NDP is wholesome Keynesianism without fiscal crises. > >And there's the social democratic dilemma in a nutshell: it's not >simply that social-democratic policy prescriptions are >objectionable, it's that in order to be palatable to the >"mainstream" they always have to be repackaged as even more >innocuous than they are. Social democratic policies can >never be innocuous enough, at least until they are completely >vapid -- at which point, they are readily dismissed by "the >mainstream" as vapid. Now Ken and Bill have responded to much of this and I don't want to repeat what has been said. But let me summarize my objections. 1. The NDP has tried to campaign on good solid issues -- jobs, health care, day care and social programs. It is the media and the right wing politicians that have hijacked the election campaign to stress "national unity" as a way of deflecting attention from the NDP's critique of the right-wing, deficit obsessed neoliberal program they are all advancing. As Alexa pointed out in frustration when she had a press conference of health care policy, they kept (that is the media kept) asking her about Manning's extremist, anti-Quebec views and ignoring the issue of health care. 2. The NDP's decision to accept that the Liberal's are highly likely to be returned is based on good solid electoral strategy. In the last election, the NDP was sandbagged by voters combining behind the Liberals to get rid of the hated conservatives. The Liberals ran as the left -- but when in power, they governed from the right (as they usually did) but to a more extreme right because of the lack of a left opposition. In this election, if voters are worried that the two extreme right parties (Conservatives and/or Reform) are going to win, then voters will again desert the NDP for the Liberals, allowing again for a centre right Liberal government pressured only from the extreme right with no even social democratic left influence in protecting the welfare state -- the erosion of which under the Liberals is the cause of rising poverty, particularly of children, the rise of a 2-tier health system, the decline in the social wage, etc. etc. No the Canadian welfare state, such as it is, is no utopia, no partridge family psychedelia, and the 70s no golden age, but they were still headed in the right direction, which we can't say now. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
