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Learning from our (collective) mistakes in activism

docalf
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Joined: Dec 25 2011

If there was one thing in activism that you did in 2011 (or before) that you wouldn't want to repeat in 2012 (or ever), what would it be?

I think for me it's overinvolvement in multiple causes. The thing that got me really down last year was the fact the I was deeply involved in at least four groups (which in itself is okay) but the meetings for the groups were all over the city and I found myself exhausted throughout the week, and the weekend announced more meetings. My health not being good (with some chronic issues) didn't help either.

I felt like I wasn't giving my 100% to any of the causes and ended up feeling dissatisfied with myself and overall unfulfilled. 

So I'll definitely try to work more on the quality rather than the quantity (but often groups are scrambling to find people so I admit it'd be hard to sit back and say a firm no).

What'd be the one thing you'd try not to repeat in activism?

 


Comments

Freedom 55
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Joined: Mar 14 2010

Good question, docalf. I've had similar experiences, and had to learn that same lesson a few years back.

 

One mistake that I try to avoid is getting caught up in flavour of the week events. This is especially problematic here in Ottawa, as it's a natural venue for addressing national and international issues. The less sexy day-to-day struggles often get put on the backburner whenever a big meeting or especially odious leader comes to town. I think it's important to not drop whatever organizing one's doing just because something new, and sexy, and immediate comes along. This is all the more important if one's involved in organizing outside of one's own community(ies).


docalf
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Joined: Dec 25 2011

Thanks! I totally agree. I think it's important to keep in mind the bigger picture and not get bogged down by sparkly but relatively small and sometimes not so vital stuff.

 


M. Spector
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Joined: Feb 19 2005

So, is it agreed then that when a notorious war criminal comes to give a speech, or Canada launches some new military attack on another country, activists should carry on business as usual and not get distracted by current events?

Or is there room for the idea that new developments, however "small and not so vital", afford an opportunity for activists to make connections between issues and practice co-operation with other activists around a specific single issue that they can all agree on?


6079_Smith_W
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Joined: Jun 10 2010

Welcome to babble docalf

I agree Freedom 55. 

While acute incidents and war criminals need to be dealt with, it is important (while devoting time to that) to remember to feed the dog and the kids, recycle, write those letters that were in your to do file, and  read the news to keep abreast of what else is happening.

Oh... and don't guilt trip yourself if you don't happen to get everything done.

 

 


Freedom 55
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Joined: Mar 14 2010

I saw this a couple days ago, and it reminded me of this thread:

Grace Lee Boggs’ Advice to Young Activists

Quote:

When the beloved and visionary Asian-American civil rights activist Grace Lee Boggs speaks, people pay attention. And for good reason. At 96, Boggs has been engaged in labor, black power, Asian American, feminist, environmental and food justice struggles for over half a century. And it’s work she’s still involved in today. Together with her husband, the late activist James Boggs, the two organized Detroit Summer, now in its 20th year.

Boggs sat down with Hyphen Magazine, and in her trademark way, quickly dispensed with fuzzy feelings and self-congratulatory encouragement for progressives. Instead, she gets straight to the point, with sharp analysis of the current political moment offers her thoughts on the work ahead for people who want to fight for social, economic and racial justice.

“I would say to a young activist, ‘Do visionary organizing.’” Boggs told Hyphen. “‘Turn your back on protest organizing and recognize how that leads you more and more to defensive operations, whereas visionary organizing gives you the opportunity to encourage the creative capacity in people and it’s very fulfilling.’”


M. Spector
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Joined: Feb 19 2005

What the fuck is "visionary organizing"?


6079_Smith_W
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Joined: Jun 10 2010

Makes sense to me - driving change by proposing new and positive ideas, rather than focusing on fighting bad ones.

In short, catching more flies with honey than with vinegar. Good advice.


RevolutionPlease
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M. Spector wrote:

What the fuck is "visionary organizing"?

Removing the log from people's eyes.

M. Spector
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Joined: Feb 19 2005

6079_Smith_W wrote:

In short, catching more flies with honey than with vinegar. Good advice.

Actually, you can catch more flies with bullshit than with honey.


6079_Smith_W
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Joined: Jun 10 2010

Clearly you know more about it than me, M. Spector. I'd say bullshit flies are attracted to bullshit, and fruitflies are attracted to honey.

But regarding the actual point, I think it is always better to build rather than destroy, and I think there are plenty of struggles in which people think they have to engage and defeat an enemy, when in fact they can just go around them or even (Oh No!).. work with them.

 

What did that fellow say? 

Love is better than anger

Hope is better than fewr

Optimism is better than despair.

 

What do you think? Seems like bullshit to you? 

 

 


M. Spector
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Joined: Feb 19 2005

6079_Smith_W wrote:

I'd say bullshit flies are attracted to bullshit, and fruitflies are attracted to honey.

Groucho Marx wrote:
Time flies like an arrow; fruitflies like a banana.


Left Turn
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Joined: Mar 28 2005

To answer the original question posed in this thread, I'd say the one mistake in activism that I would like to avoid making again is getting into arguments in meetings over things that don't really matter, but that can hurt friendships between activists and damage group dynamics.

I'm not suggesting that we reduce everything to lowest common denominator politics or that we never air legitimate differences, just that we not get into petty arguments over things that have no relevance to the actual class struggle. For example, getting into an argument over whether a group with an active membership of 10 people needs a 3 person coordinating committee.

M. Spector wrote:
So, is it agreed then that when a notorious war criminal comes to give a speech, or Canada launches some new military attack on another country, activists should carry on business as usual and not get distracted by current events?

Or is there room for the idea that new developments, however "small and not so vital", afford an opportunity for activists to make connections between issues and practice co-operation with other activists around a specific single issue that they can all agree on?

I'm in agreement with M. Spector that it's important to protest when notorious war criminals come to give a speech, or when Canada launches a new military attack on another country, or to use a verry current example, when the government engages in electoral fraud.

At the same time, it's important to continue the work of getting politically organized; of analyzing the political situation to determine which causes, events and actions warrant our time and effort; and of putting forward an alternate political and economic vision. Often though, the more routine work of activists becomes in-services for the left, detatched from the actual class struggles going on around us.

M. Spector wrote:
What the fuck is "visionary organizing"?

Seems to be code for abandoning the actual class struggle in favour of in-services for the converted. The reality in this country is that due to the level of political organization of the working class, the class struggle generally takes place on terrain decided by the ruling class. When the ruling class engages in class war, the working class needs to take on the ruling class and defeat their attacks. To not fight back against the attacks by the ruling class is to abandon the class struggle, which was Lenin's definition of sectarianism.


6079_Smith_W
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Joined: Jun 10 2010

So "sectarian" is code for anyone who does things differently than your school book says they should?

You know, just because someone works in a way that you don't recognize doesn't mean that they have abandoned anyone. It just means they are working from a different direction than you are.

(edit)

And while I know you don't actually think this way, there is something about that fatalistic  terminology - the duty to answer attacks in the class war and defeat the enemy - that makes me think of every other war in which people see no alternative but to walk straight into a line of cannons. Why should it make any more sense in this case to just react and blindly fight the battles on their turf? 

 


Left Turn
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6079_Smith_W wrote:
So "sectarian" is code for anyone who does things differently than your school book says they should?

Lenin defined sectarianism as withdrawal from struggle, by which he of course meant the class struggle, and I tend to agree with him. Class struggle is of course the expression of class conflict from a socialist perspective. This means that in order to engage in class struggle, workers have to actively come in conflict with other social classes, namely the bourgeoisie or ruling class. If we don't do that, then we have withdrawn from the class struggle into sectarianism. All of which means that it makes sense for workers to engage in activism that actually forces the ruling class to respond to what we're doing; as opposed to in-services for the left which go completely unnoticed by the ruling class. Unless of course said in-services for the left generate concrete actions which force the ruling class to take notice and respond.


RevolutionPlease
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Joined: Oct 15 2007
There is definitely need for new politics. And it needs to be simple. Look at your neighbour and ask yourself how immersed they are in politics?

Freedom 55
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RevolutionPlease wrote:
There is definitely need for new politics. And it needs to be simple. Look at your neighbour and ask yourself how immersed they are in politics?

I think that's it. It's about finding ways to organize within your communities that build solidarity and class consciousness while also having a tangible impact on people's day-to-day lives.

I think this podcast gives some insight into what Grace Lee Boggs is getting at:

Becoming Detroit

http://download.publicradio.org/podcast/being/programs/2012/01/18/201201...


Catchfire
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Joined: Apr 16 2003

M. Spector wrote:
What the fuck is "visionary organizing"?

Maysie posted this in another thread, which seems to quite nicely answer this question:

bell hooks wrote:
Visionary feminism is a wise and loving politics. ... The soul of feminist politics is the commitment to ending patriarchal domination of women and men, girls and boys. Love cannot exist in any relationship that is based on domination and coercion. Males cannot love themselves in patriarchal culture if their very self-definition relies on submission to patriarchal rules. When men embrace feminist thinking and practice, which emphasizes the value of mutual growth and self-actualization in all relationships, their emotional well-being will be enhanced. A genuine feminist politics always brings us from bondage to freedom, from lovelessness to loving.


6079_Smith_W
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Joined: Jun 10 2010

Likewise, the podcast Freedom 55 posted should clear up what Boggs meant by the term, as well as how she actually put it into practice . Hardly inservice, IMO.

Although how that is turned into an insult I don't know. People working for change are just supposed to follow orders and not educate themselves in order to understand WHY? 

Sorry... not part of my revolution.

 

 


Fidel
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Joined: Apr 29 2004

6079_Smith_W wrote:

So "sectarian" is code for anyone who does things differently than your school book says they should?

I think some of us believe that the class warfare of today is the same as it was 100 years ago when labour was pitted against industrial capitalists. And it's not really true in this day and age. Today class warfare is waged by banking and finance against whole nations: governments, owners of the means and labour included. The class war is very different today. The "new" liberal capitalism as of the 1980s and 90s is a kind of counter-Enlightenment whereby they intend to bring the world into a new dark ages. Their motto is that there is no alternative, and there is no equivalent alternative to neoliberalism because the left is still divided today. The old guard have no solutions other than rhyming off old remedies, like nationalisation and picketing job sites. And although they are well meaning, these are not modern solutions. Calling for nationalisations and strike actions are to neoliberalism as screen doors are to a submarine.


Rabble_Incognito
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Joined: Feb 21 2012

Fidel wrote:

6079_Smith_W wrote:

So "sectarian" is code for anyone who does things differently than your school book says they should?

I think some of us believe that the class warfare of today is the same as it was 100 years ago when labour was pitted against industrial capitalists. And it's not really true in this day and age. Today class warfare is waged by banking and finance against whole nations: governments, owners of the means and labour included. The class war is very different today. The "new" liberal capitalism as of the 1980s and 90s is a kind of counter-Enlightenment whereby they intend to bring the world into a new dark ages. Their motto is that there is no alternative, and there is no equivalent alternative to neoliberalism because the left is still divided today. The old guard have no solutions other than rhyming off old remedies, like nationalisation and picketing job sites. And although they are well meaning, these are not modern solutions. Calling for nationalisations and strike actions are to neoliberalism as screen doors are to a submarine.

I still support strike actions or actions like picketing based on the logic that any time workers collaborate there's probably good reason for it. There are also good reasons for nationalization, like the notion that some assets are sustainable when publicly owned, though I think the Argentinians have it right, and when a company picks up and leaves, take their shit and create a worker coop - occupy it, literally. Utilities could be nationalized, a national oil utility so the resource can be managed by the people who own it. Perhaps we can agree today's conflicts require very creative thinking on the part of activists. 'Visionary organizing' sounds like reframing reality for people.

Corporations can twist a strike action into something that is said to affect the public and the strikers can be blamed, but that only works with an ignorant public. Perhaps todays activist has to also be an educator, just like activists of the past. I'm sure the previous generations of capitalists also misrepresented - to counter feudalism in Canada activists in the 1800s went out and talked to their neighbors - real grassroots stuff - just teaching people how they were being abused - no internet. So in a sense this is part of a long lineage. Some of the  settlers here were activists and didn't know it, they were just fighting to eat and stay out of jail for debt or some other harassment by the laird.

The person who talks to his or her neighbor knows how they're doing. I'm preaching to the converted. Just don't give up the fight even when it appears discouraging - people do admire the courage and principles of the occupy activists, for example, and despite the MSM coverage (poor) people know they were up against some pretty powerful foes.


Fidel
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Joined: Apr 29 2004

I like the general idea for nationalisations. And collective bargaining will always have a role in free labour markets. 

But I think that nationalisations are more expensive in Canada today than they were before NAFTA and before the rules on foreign investment were gutted in the Mulroney era and nothing done about it during the Liberals' stranglehold on power from 93 to 06. Nationalisations are easily reversed, though, once a different government is elected with opposing ideology. We can counter this by simply pursuing newer strategies, like 'energy nationalism' when it comes to that sector of the economy. Federal power provides the opportunity to raise corporate taxes across the country without pitting smaller provincial economies against larger ones as is the case today with top-down neoliberalism beginning with a succession of weak and ineffective governments in Ottawa since 1984.

I think a decent strategy to counter neoliberalism would be to simply raise overall federal tax revenues from a wide range of sources to pay for social programs and put Ottawa on track to pay down the whopping federal debt amassed by our two oldest political parties in government since 1975. The CCF was adamant about creating fiscal sanity before creating public enterprises, and they achieved a lot of it over five terms in government. I'm thinking those Saskatchewan CCF governments maybe went against the grain WRT Keynesian policies for throwing caution to the wind on borrrowing and spending.

Jack Layton said in 2004 that there are better uses for the Bank of Canada, and I think that if some percentage of money and credit could be done through our still nationalised Bank of Canada, it could stem the tide against borrowing from private sources at higher rates of interest. In my opinion there are many different ways for the NDP to look good in federal government and work wonders at the same time. I think for now. though, that the NDP would do really well if they could reverse cuts to federal transfers to where they were in the 1990's or so. And the cuts have been deep enough that restoring them would make noticable differences across the country.  


M. Spector
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Joined: Feb 19 2005

Fidel wrote:

Nationalisations are easily reversed, though, once a different government is elected with opposing ideology.

Funny how proposals for positive social change are "easily reversed", but it seems that right-wing neo-liberal changes - like privatizations, NAFTA, and the GST - are somehow impossible to reverse once a different government is elected with an opposing ideology.


NDPP
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Joined: Dec 27 2008

Here's a good lesson  - exercise extreme due diligence in examining large well funded 'activist' or political organizations. They may not be what you thought they were and your money, energies or support may end up being channeled elsewhere..eg

Amnesty International, George Clooney and the Bidding of Empire - by John Vincent

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/03/21/amnesty-international-george-cloo...

"IN March this year, Frank S Jannuzi was named Washington DC office head at Amnesty International USA (AIUSA). Frank, a former staffer with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is Hitachi International Affairs Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)."


Fidel
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M. Spector wrote:

Fidel wrote:

Nationalisations are easily reversed, though, once a different government is elected with opposing ideology.

No that's what I'm saying, eh. Renationalisations are easy just renationalise. Ask Vlad Putin how easy it is to borrow billions from Chinese state banks in renationalising Yukos Oil, some natural gas companies, and vodka production. 

So why can't the NDP just go swing a deal with China's state-owned banks, you ask? Good question, and I won't return to it soon.

But seriously, there is an easier and more subtle way to strangle the bastards into submission without adding to the massive national debt hole they dropped us into accidentally on purpose. Think about it. Think about this game of wack a mole with nationalisations followed by conservative-Liberal governments pawning things off to the four stock market winds for a split second and get back to us after you've figured it out for yourself.

M. Spector wrote:
Funny how proposals for positive social change are "easily reversed", but it seems that right-wing neo-liberal changes - like privatizations, NAFTA, and the GST - are somehow impossible to reverse once a different government is elected with an opposing ideology.
 

Privatizations are easily remedied. I am not worried about privatizations. Private corporations can be taxed as per free market mechanisms available to every country except for Canada and maybe Mexico somewhat. Although I am not sure what they agreed to under NAFTA, but they prolly weren't half as out to lunch as Chretien and Manley and dozens and dozens of Ottawa lawyers were in 1993-94. But before we can fix that situation, we will need to renegotiate or reneg on NAFTA a few times ourselves. Could take two to five years for the Yanquis to see things our way, though. So we need a plan for the first four years in order to get re-elected at least once in a row. And you aren't offering anything other than the same old same-old, which I think is a sure recipe to get us thrown out of power by the start of term numero deux.

As I was saying about old guard solutions which are no solutions now under neoliberalism, they were great fun back in the old days.

It's the deregulation and lax rules for foreign investment that want reversing. Then you can actually begin to do something to stop the neoliberalized sea water rushing in that's holding your submarine on the bottom. Nationalisations in good time but first you need to be able to pay for it and not appear to be just another fiscal Frankenstein on a par with the Liberals and Tories same old stories. They can get away with their fiscal idiocy because they have the "fourth estate" backing them up. We socialists, on the other hand, will actually need to deliver some results lasting more than a neoliberal business cycle of two to three year's worth of boom-bust. Three decades three recessions later and we need to come up with a real plan to counter the neoliberal counter-Enlightenment. And it has to be hardened in the test lab of the actual world not fantasyland.

I dunno about you but I want my socialist revolution to last more than one lousy term in federal power.

I dunno about you but I want my socialist revolucion! to have both political and populist cred and be referred to around the world by other socialist revolutionaries as a model for success against Maggie's and Milton's "TINA."

Marx was bang on the mark when he said that finance capital and banksters should never be allowed to overthrow industrial capitalism. He just didn't think they would be so colossally stupid as to let it happen. They were, and they have, though. New plan of attack needed, get it? And don't be thumping Das Kapital or the manifesto and quoting word for word as if you've been taken over by the holy spirit of Karl. They were guidelines more than literal instructions to be followed point by point two millenia later or however long it's been. i'm sorry but you're going to need to get behind the largest opposition party ever elected to oppose phony majority government in Ottawa,  because advocating for the non-existent anti-NDP party has gotten you nowhere real fast, comrade M. Go for it I'm listening.


M. Spector
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Fidel wrote:

Marx was bang on the mark when he said that finance capital and banksters should never be allowed to overthrow industrial capitalism.

Where did he say that?


Fidel
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Joined: Apr 29 2004

M. Spector wrote:

Fidel wrote:

Marx was bang on the mark when he said that finance capital and banksters should never be allowed to overthrow industrial capitalism.

Where did he say that?

 

And what's more, Marx said the mode of capitalist production was unstoppable. He said that capitalist industrialism should spread around the world. But not to worry, because some day all of it would be owned by the workers. 

But we don't have those same relationships between workers and the owners of the means today. The owners have offshored jobs and even the means of. It's why former ElectroMotive workers in London Ontario should be protesting on Parliament Hill not an imaginary picket line in the righttowork state of Indiana where their jobs and means of were taken with rubberstamp approval by our corrupt stooges in Ottawa.

Capitalists are incapable of viewing money as a means of exchanging the commodities they produce for the commodities they require. Capitalists view money as just another commodity and believe that money can make money. But we socialists know that isn't really true, because wealth is created by the sweat, blood and tears of the workers. Without workers, capitalists and their efforts to "create wealth" are kaput.

Marx said that money is invested by capitalists to produce commodities to be sold at a profit (M-C-M). But this is no longer true as of about 1987 or so. Today the formula for production of capitalist wealth is M-C-M or money begets money(M-M), which is a great fiction as Marx would tell us today. Finance capitalists have overthrown industrial capitalism, and now ElectroMotive workers in London have no one to picket against in the struggle. There is no longer a geographical-physical factory location inside their country which can be taken control of by the workers as Marx and Lenin said they should do.

You can't nationalise jobs and technological innovation created by Canadian workers that have since been taken from you and exported to another country. At least, not without sending troops to occupy some Caterpillar plant location in the heavily-armed righttowork state of Indiana. I just don't think its on.

But we can counter the privatisations without bankrupting the country in a never ending game of wack-a-mole nationalisations followed by crooked selloffs to friends of the party. Why? What's stopping us from simply nationalising the profits, and let capitalists have their feel good about owning some bricks and mortar and decaying equipment devaluing year after year? 


1springgarden
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Fidel wrote:

You can't nationalise jobs and technological innovation created by Canadian workers that have since been taken from you and exported to another country. At least, not without sending troops to occupy some Caterpillar plant location in the heavily-armed righttowork state of Indiana. I just don't think its on.

But we can counter the privatisations without bankrupting the country in a never ending game of wack-a-mole nationalisations followed by crooked selloffs to friends of the party. Why? What's stopping us from simply nationalising the profits, and let capitalists have their feel good about owning some bricks and mortar and decaying equipment devaluing year after year? 

You're saying raise the corporate tax rates, tax their profits?  But then the capitalists who own manufacturing just move the plant to a low tax jurisdiction, say Indiana.  The Conservatives are recently bargaining with the provinces to get the corporate tax rates throughout Canada as low as possible.  I guess the idea is to attract more multi-national corporations to the country. 

Your radical tax-their-profits strategy could work for resource extraction industries because the tar sands, trees and mines are located here.

You don't see Hugo Chavez turning away from nationalising banks, miners or manufacturing.  If it has strategic value and can be run in the national interest they nationalise it.

Fidel, is there more to your prescription than radically higher corporate taxes?


Fidel
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1springgarden wrote:

Fidel wrote:

You can't nationalise jobs and technological innovation created by Canadian workers that have since been taken from you and exported to another country. At least, not without sending troops to occupy some Caterpillar plant location in the heavily-armed righttowork state of Indiana. I just don't think its on.

But we can counter the privatisations without bankrupting the country in a never ending game of wack-a-mole nationalisations followed by crooked selloffs to friends of the party. Why? What's stopping us from simply nationalising the profits, and let capitalists have their feel good about owning some bricks and mortar and decaying equipment devaluing year after year? 

You're saying raise the corporate tax rates, tax their profits?  But then the capitalists who own manufacturing just move the plant to a low tax jurisdiction, say Indiana.

What manufacturing? 

Okay jokes aside, we can still play the game. Canada exports massive amounts of energy in various forms to the U.S. to feed industry and industrial and other expansions there. Energy is the backbone of all economies no matter the socio-economic setup. It's difficult for our largest trade partner to replace Canada as a source of energy. But we need a strong central government in Ottawa in order to bargain with the U.S. and using trade mechanisms available to every democratic country.  

Quote:
The Conservatives are recently bargaining with the provinces to get the corporate tax rates throughout Canada as low as possible.  I guess the idea is to attract more multi-national corporations to the country.

Corporate tax rates can also be raised across the board without pitting smaller provincial economies against larger ones. But we would need a strong central government not the weak and ineffective ones in Ottawa Canadians are acccustomed to.

Quote:
You don't see Hugo Chavez turning away from nationalising banks, miners or manufacturing.  If it has strategic value and can be run in the national interest they nationalise it.

Chavez didn't nationalise banks during his first term in power nor did he campaign on it. And he did put various constitutional changes to a referendum. And besides, our central bank is already nationalised - it's just not being used to create much money or credit.

But Canada is not Venezuela. Venezuela is still a mostly poor and developing country after years of corruption and U.S. oil companies draining the national wealth.

In the end our friends in the old guard are angry because the NDP are not promising to go caps in hand to private bankers to borrow high finance capital to pay for nationalisations, which are not really necessary in the near term. The old socialist CCFers would never have borrowed money at high interest to pay for nationalisations. And not immediately after taking control of a province in the hole. And current federal debt is no small matter. The two old line parties have thrown us into a deep financial hole since 1975. These anti-NDP leftists never mention the debt or how they would finance nationalisations, or the fact that would have to borrow from capitalist bankers to achieve what they apparently think the NDP should promise to do during a first term in power. 

Quote:
Fidel, is there more to your prescription than radically higher corporate taxes?
 

I'm just saying we can do things inside the first four year term in federal government which are not so radical and still leave voters with the impression that the NDP deserves a second term and a third term. We can begin by raising overall federal tax revenues as a percentage of GDP to just the OECD average. Not the communist Nordic country average or even the socialist EU-15 average just the OECD average. We don't need to start a cold war in this the last bastion of political conservtism in the world in North America. This would represent another $35 billion or so in federal revenues to begin with. The NDP could really make this money work for them and the rest of the country. 

 We have to realize the real object of the game and not to be taken by surprise as Bob Rae's ONDP government was by David  Petersen's snap election call for short term political gain in 1990. We need to realise that the corrupt stooges before us have bankrupted the country similarly and allowed foreign multinationals a free hand in Canada for too long. There have been more than 14,000 foreign takeovers of Canadian corporations and valuable crown assets since just 1985. 30 key sectors of our economy are majority foreign-owned and controlled and mostly by rich Americans. And they were had at firesale prices before assets and share values were inflated on stock markets. Ottawa is already in the hole to the tune of more than half a trillion dollars.

We could transform Canada into a net creditor nation, like Norway with its soverign oil fund. We could have free university education, nationalised daycare and well funded socialized medicine for all Canadians, like Norway has today. I think that would be doable in the nearer term than playing wack-a-mole nationalisations with the two old line parties and their rich friends. What the old guard want to do is spend billions and billions on nationalisations right away and to look terrible on paper by the next election in order for some large percentage of voters to reject us. And I think it is the wrong approach doomed to failure not because it would not work out in the long run but because we would necessarily have to consider the electorate and democracy in general. Old style socialists would be in power today if they had a modern plan of attack appealing to some large minority of eligible voters doing the choosing in this country. Bless them to bits because their intentions are certainly well meaning.


CanadaOrangeCat
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Joined: Apr 25 2013

Upping the corporate tax rate will lower the take.


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