Rae's got it right

The NDP has become "wedded to a culture of opposition and protest" over the past 20 years.

~Bob Rae, Canada in the Balance
Thank you, Whig-Standard

Living the hippie dream

I went to an NDP press conference yesterday. That party is hilarious - both the federal and provincial varieties (we'll lump them together here just for the sake of grammatical sanity. They're the exact same, anyway).

It's not even a real political party. If it was, it certainly wouldn't feel the need to work outside of parliament/the legislature in order to get anything done. That silly little press conference, which featured an MP and an MLA, by the way, was just as pathetic as DSU election debates, if not more. In fact, the majority of the 20-person audience consisted of organizers and lobbyists (who they are invariably in bed with). I really wondered, are these people seriously kidding themselves? Or do they carry on with the charade simply because they feel that they have no other options?

The provincial NDP has just three seats less than the governing Tories. So what in heathen's name is one of its members doing whining about the fact that Team Rodney has married up with Team We're Completely Fucked? The philosophy of that party sets me reeling every time I think about it. On the one hand, they could be months away from winning an election. And on the other, they've reduced themselves to espousing a defeatist attitude, preaching to the choir in the SMUSA building; meanwhile, at least tens of students - who the NDP say they're the champions of - are walking back and forth, carrying on as if nothing else is going on.

It killed me not to ask the question, "Do you feel you're doing something positive, or did you suddenly realize when you hit the podium that you are completely wasting your time?" Or, more interestingly, "Are you so caught up with having been the born losers of NS and federal politics for so goddamn long, that no matter what inroads you make, you still try to fight the power from the outside?"

Don't get me wrong, I applaud the fact that the NDP has not abandoned its grass-roots approach even after electoral successes (well, successes, by their standards) at both levels of government. They're not sell-outs. Just a pack of fools.

But they've got nothin' on the CFS. There is no other word that can more accurately describe that organization than, drum roll please, lost. COMPLETELY LOST. Ok, that was two words. But still. I talked to Chris Parsons, a CFS national chairperson of some kind, and he told me about how excited he was to launch the Day of Action next January or February or something. He was pumped. "We're gonna be all over the country," he said, his eyes popping out of their sockets.

Wow.

I remember first-year journalism. One of my first actual assignments was to cover an event of some kind. I went to the CFS-sponsored Day of Action. The legislature WASN'T EVEN SITTING. I don't know how all that works, but I'm speculating that the cops wouldn't allow something like that to happen if, in fact, the lej was in session.

So what is the point? A media stunt? Fine. But what audience are they trying to reach? Government? If so, which level? Because their position/speaking points are going to significantly change, depending on who they're dealing with. But, of course, they have no position. Other than the fact that they want to raise hell just for the sake of raising hell.

Well, then. Is it Joe Citizen they're trying to reach? If so, what do they want him to do about it? All he's going to see is a flash across his television screen or newspaper of a bunch of snot-nosed, immature, whinny, ankle-biting kids who either have no idea how government works or simply ignore the fact. Is this supposed to inspire Joe Citizen into calling up his MLA (the name, of course, changes with the province) or MP and making a stink about the deplorable state of education in Canada? If so, and it works, the variety of Joe Citizen that would respond to such a stunt isn't worth listening to. Why? Because it's not about policy. It's about living the hippie dream.

You can go to any one of these laughable protests and ask any random participant, "What's the CST? What's a dedicated transfer? What's the MoU? And what are the problems with it?" and the reason they're there becomes apparent: livin' the dream.

Apparently, to the CFS, the 'power in numbers' principle has nothing to do with knowledge. I'm sure they've got a nice list of policy proposals that they want to see implemented. But they've seemingly abandoned the use of responsible, respectable methods to get their message across. Long ago.

***

That's all for now. Oh, except for the fact that I've secured an internship with the Kingston Whig-Standard. BOO-YA! Ummm..... where's Kingston again? And how am I going to afford to live there? Guess I hadn't thought that one through...

Fun facts

Yeah, it's been mad long since I last posted and, from what sitemeter tells me, my limited readers have given up on me. Oh well. I never really intended for anyone to read the verbal diarrhea I irregularly eject onto this page. I was bored one day in the summer and decided to write a little rant, and then felt compelled to keep posting. So it was mostly by accident that I have a blog. Well, that's my excuse anyway (and I've got lots of those).

My honours project is a never ending saga. I'm profiling a former Daily columnist who, in spite of the paper he works for, is a fairly important dude. But regardless of my best efforts, the reporting looks sloppy. He's a recluse, keeps to himself and rarely talks about his past, so nobody knows that much about him. And he says most people he knows from before he came to Halifax are either dead or awol. In sum, I've discovered I hate writing profiles. Good thing I have another one due for Tidings in a couple weeks, eh? Fack.

In other news, Reuters has got some pretty sweet gems posted at the moment, and I've pasted some of them below for the perusing pleasure of, well, me and that person from Maine who seems to be the only one who frequents my blog.

Over a million motorists think about sex rather than the road ahead and millions more who don't indulge in intimate thoughts are worrying about work or thinking about their families, a survey said on Thursday.

I think this really means a million motorists are sexually frustrated. I wonder how many are women. Chris, I think you should head over to the states...

[A] survey of 1,505 American adults, conducted by market research firm Harris Interactive, found that over half of the respondents admitted to "re-gifting" with passing on gifts becoming a far more common and acceptable phenomenon. In fact, 78 percent of consumers who were polled felt that it was acceptable to re-gift some or most of the time.

So does that mean I can finally give away that Buck 65 CD my sister gave me a few years ago? Can't stand that paris-posh dooshbag.

U.S. police arrested an 83-year-old woman on suspicion of entering California from Mexico with 10 pounds (4.5 kg) of methamphetamine strapped to her body, officials said on Thursday.

Now that's one cool granny. I bet she gives the BEST christmas and birthday presents.

A German lawyer hopes to drum up more business by pursuing state compensation claims for people who believe they were abducted by aliens.

Well, that ends another post that I've managed to squeeze by without adding much of any original material.