Sunday, May 1, 2011

unite and unite and let us all unite

Hope everybody had a fun and safe Big Pagan Holiday for All the Workers.

9 comments:

  1. "We will fight them on boulevards!..." No wait, that's another war.

    Meanwhile, some good news for a change: Election Day in CanadaLand and our Social Democratic party is about to come out strongest in its history, likely taking the status of the official opposition from the Liberals. As the Cons will end with a minority gov't, unexpected things can happen. Some optimists predict the negotiations between parties will put the NDP into the driver's seat, though I can't imagine Governor General asking them to form a gov't in any of these scenarios. We need to calm down and see that it's probably a shot at Stornoway with a minority gov't, and not a shot at coalition prime ministership.

    Ok, off to buy a loaf of bread and to vote. Something very May 1st-y about this combination.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Bottom line: we are f**ked. We got the Official Opposition, but the Conservatives won the majority government. Four years of FCKD.

    The old one about the elusive cake which you can either have or eat, not both.

    ReplyDelete
  3. It's still a good win for the NDP, though, isn't it? So what's the long game? Will the Conservatives overplay their hand?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Don't they always? But to think that we'll have them undisturbed until 2015 makes me want to withdraw to a corner and weep. Having Obama next door (and knowing how integrated our economy is to yours) may be the only remaining good thing. The Obama Admin remains the only progressive force that can influence Stephen Harper. (Tho' how progressive that admin will be is another question.)
    [I'll have to chop up the message, Blogger won't let me do more than two paragraphs]

    ReplyDelete
  5. I heard analyses last night that suggest that the NDP at 42 MPs in a minority gov't situation had more power than it will have now, with 100-plus MPs against a majority government. Very plausible.

    One undoubtedly bright light was the Green Party leader (and woman, which is not unimportant) getting elected in her riding in BC.

    ReplyDelete
  6. No idea what happened in Quebec. NDP is now, in many ways, a Quebecois party. I love that; not sure how it'll work for them.

    So there--Bushism lives in Canada, and that the social-democratic idea does too doesn't make the situation much better.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Well, as I used to tell Republicans during the reigns of Reagan, George I, and George II, "You got the government you deserve. Unfortunately so did the rest of us."

    So did people just defect wholesale from Bloc Quebecois, or was BQ pretty much history already?

    ReplyDelete
  8. (I'm impressed by your knowledge! Usuall Cnd politics puts people to sleep, including Canadians.) They defected wholesale, yes. Until two weeks before the election, BQ was pretty solid. In the intervening time, it evaporated. One of the mysteries of electoral behaviour.

    Four students got elected for the NDP, one is 19 years old and never had a job. A woman who can't speak French and spent a week vacationing in Vegas during the campaign also got elected. Had they run a dog in Quebec, it would have won. It's all very odd. I know the NDP promised to restart the debate of Quebec in the constitution (Bloc failed in this), and that the prevailing mood in Quebec is that the sovereignty won't be achieved through federal political channels, but this sweep is still surprising.

    ReplyDelete