Why Socialist? Why NDP? Part 1: Why NDP? By Michael Laxer
Sunday, September 14, 2008
by Michael Laxer
(this is Michael's post from the NDP Left Blog Site:)
So, why NDP?
In the midst of an election campaign as we are, with the threat of a Harper majority bringing out the calls again for "strategic voting", why should Canadians and leftists, regardless of where they live, vote NDP? In the midst of an invisible leadership contest in Ontario, why should leftists bother and not just move on to greener pastures?
As its critics often point out, and I agree, Layton has led the NDP towards a more parliamentary short-term tactical approach to power than ever before. He has made silly and often appalling compromises to further the party's caucus goals (anyone remember the support for mandatory minimum sentences or the disgraceful pandering around the age-of-consent, playing handmaiden in both cases to stupid and reactionary policies that do nothing towards achieving their stated goals and that further a Toronto Sun style agenda?). Layton's strategists appear to be inept and lacking principle and his many apologists on blogs or Facebook seem to spout glib slogans and boring self-congratulatory nonsense about how hard they are working for Canada and working people by gracing various election races and political forums with their presence. The same criticisms can be leveled at many of the party's provincial wings.
It almost seems fair, as many on the left feel, to say that this is all the party is now about, that a kind of Neo-Blairism has triumphed here too, and that the NDP is a prisoner to forces reeling from the advance of reaction in 90's, unable and unwilling to fight anymore for structural change and confined now to vacant left-Liberal rubbish about helping "working families" in minor ways.
Yet it is not fair, and while many of the criticisms have a certain resonance and an element of truth to them, and while the constant sloganeering of the NDP community, defensive as it so often is, can, indeed, be deeply irritating and out-of-touch, the NDP represents the only true force operating on an organized political level that comes out of a tradition of class-based politics and that has as its aim, even now, the reinvention of Canada in meaningful ways that benefit the working-class and the middle-class. Blairism has not, in fact, taken hold of the NDP...yet!
The Greens, which many turn to now, are a false distraction from the real movement. The NDP came out of the Regina Manifesto, Organized Labour and its struggles, and the British and European Democratic Socialist, Fabian and even Marxian traditions. Its frame of reference remains a desire to modify the very structure of capitalism to make it more equitable. This proud tradition was reflected by the reading of the Manifesto itself, on Parliament Hill on its anniversary, with parliamentarians, all New Democrats, reading an unabashedly Socialist document proudly, a document that called for nothing less than the end of the system we live under.
Lacking this history and tradition the Greens have good environmental platforms, but are either confused, simplistic or reactionary on other issues. They are not a force for fundamental change for the very reason that they are not opposed to the system per-se, they simply oppose certain aspects of it as it impacts their one issue. Some would argue that the needs of the environment will cause a fundamental altering of the capitalist economic system anyway, as the changes to be made are so great the whole thing will have to be overhauled.
This may be true.
The Greens, however, with no sense of the class basis of these problems and of the capitalist economy, will not be able to lead this charge, as on economic distributive issues they are as much an "old-line" party as the rest of them. Indeed, their policies, devoid of class content, take on a disturbingly "life-boat" tone to them as one wonders exactly how they intend to make these vast changes to the way we live our lives without confronting head-on the basic socio-economic order we live under and challenging the continued grip on power held by business and it interests, by the wealthy and by the Bay St. set of super-Capitalists and Speculative Capitalists who have remade the world in their own image of the cold boardroom and the amorality of the Stock Market floor.
The Greens remain a symptom of the problem, not its solution.
Some, even those on the left of the NDP, also turn to the Liberals, fearing, correctly, the impact of a Harper majority on Canada. They feel, sometimes disingenuously, that it is better to hold one's nose and vote Liberal (they are not so bad after all!) than to hand the country to the barbarians who wait at the gate.
This is fine, for what for it is worth, but it is worth very little.
Never mind that the Liberals are, as I described them elsewhere, little more than the "progressive wing" of an increasingly harsh and ugly capitalism; never mind that, when they no longer had a left to fear, they ran in the 90's the single most reactionary and corrupt government the country has seen since the Second World War (with the 1995 budget being a true neo-con wet dream, an outright assault on Canada's social programs and its more interventionist path); never mind that the Liberals will trend to the right anytime the hold a majority for the simple reason that their view of capitalism is not FUNDAMENTALLY different than the Tories...they just prefer capitalism with a "human face" (not too much poverty...that makes us feel bad!).
Never mind all of these things; never mind that they are led by a man who talks tough on the environment yet was an awful Environment Minister, never mind the gutting of transfer payments to the provinces, never mind the outright theft of money paid out by workers themselves into UI being used for every purpose imaginable other than the paying out of benefits to these same workers, never mind the moral abdication on free trade, on Afghanistan, on the Trudeau vision, on the CBC...on so many issues, impossible to count during their 13 years of "stewardship".
The even more significant reason to oppose strategic voting is who it means you would have to vote for. If you adhere to the logic are you really going to cast your ballot for Michael Ignatieff, a man who refuses to live in or even frequent the working class riding he "represents" (preferring instead the high-rollers of his downtown condo address and the sycophantic dinners and parties held in honour of this great intellectual), a man who lived three decades outside of Canada but came back feeling he was immediately qualified to be Prime Minister (and, in a sad statement about the Liberal Party, he nearly became their man for the job), a man who supported the Iraq War and whose "torture-lite" positions are a moral disgrace, a man so deeply out-of-touch with this country that he only a few short years ago used "we" when talking about the positive influence that an American Empire could have in the world (don't deny it Mike, I have the article!)?
Are you really going to vote for the odious Bob Rae whose greatest contribution to the left and progressives in Canada was their defeat and their consignment to the political wilderness for ten years after his government failed famously to keep any of its significant promises to the people of Ontario? Are you really going to vote for members of the Liberal "family caucus" like Jim Karygianis or Dennis Lee who are anti-abortion, opposed to gay rights etc...? Are you really going to vote for the many left over crooks from the Chretian era (and we all know who they are), party hacks who dipped their noses and the noses of their backers deep into the public well, further destroying the faith of Canadians in their government? Are you really going to vote for Mr. "I want us to look to Alberta for inspiration" Gerrard Kennedy over Peggy Nash?
Are you really going to vote for people who supported the 1995 budget? Are you really going to vote for members of a caucus who criticized Harper policies out of parliament only to vote for them in parliament (talk about talking out of the left side of your mouth while governing out of the right!)? Really?
So why vote NDP? Why support and work within the NDP?
Because the NDP is a mass political force, backed by millions of Canadians, that emerged from Canada's great Socialist tradition and remains the only mass socialist party not only in this country, but anywhere north of the Mexican border. Because even at his worst Jack Layton is far more principled than anyone the Liberals have to offer, his program is better and, most importantly, what he represents, historically as well as today, is fundamentally different from what the other parties advance. Because the NDP does not tolerate bigots and crooks in their caucus and would never have the crew of unprincipled hacks that populate much of the Liberal backbench.
But also because, when you hold your nose and vote Liberal you cast your ballot against good people fighting for real changes in your communities and in favour of cynicism and cronyism.
The NDP may be flawed, it may take the wrong stand here-or-there, it may need new leadership, and it desperately needs to make a left turn and reinvigorate itself with a strong, well-thought out Socialist platform that we work to advance both during and between elections, but it remains the one and only hope for true, systemic, Democratic Socialist change in Canada and it members and candidates represent the best that this country has to offer politically. That is why it should be supported and that is why it is worth working within.
To abandon this reality for the false god of strategic voting or for the Greens, or to abandon organized politics altogether in some neo-anarchist, neo-totalitarian dream of somehow creating real change without working within the democratic parliamentary process at all, is to do the best favour that the wealthy, the neo-cons, and the new business elite can ask of you; it is to legitimize the idea that none of it matters anyway and that nothing will ever really change at all, that the future really does only hold minor variations of the same outcome and that history has ended, with the perpetual triumph of the right, if not in name than at least in deed.
That is why I will be voting NDP.
Back on the home front in our flat (with bedrooms & bath upstairs), I got to speaking my heart to my Mum and Missus and we came upon our plan very presently! Whilst I finished off a fifth of Rye and what was left of the brasso, the ladies planned out the weaving of a fireman-regulation sized 100% Virgin Scottish wool Harris Tweed Net that we shall personally take to New York City's Wall Street for the benefit of the many anticipated Wall Street Jumpers to make the tragic desperate leap in months to come. My old mum was the one who came up with the idea to crown our offering -- we would drive it down to the Yanks on The May Long Weekend and make a real road-adventure of it. The dear old doll has a heart the size of the late Queen Mum's, bless her....
Then this thought struck me whilst nodding off during the Epilogue on the Recliner after the girls had tidied and gone to their beds: as modern day pilgrims yet travel to Pompeii or to the remains of the Berlin Wall -- so Wall Street's edifices may yet become sites men look on as with a scornful wonder... this made me terribly terribly sad as I mused on the sun setting on yet another Empire, this time it seemed the kingdom of Finance Capital was in a process of dissolution. And then I thought I would gather up my little family up to serve as a kind of Catcher in the Rye for the individuals losing hope in the powers that be, and as I was just going under I started and heard myself say aloud: men won't be turned into pavement-stains if the Budgells' have anything to do with it.
Seems I'd come to consciousness due to my acid-reflux, so I turned off FOX News channel and as I climbed into bed munching my TUMS I pulled the bedclothes onto me and said an Ave. Lights out...
Andrew Reesor-Taylor