Lascaris: Canada must prepare for America's rapid decline

Lascaris is a great communicator and I agree with his conclusion:

In the current circumstances, deeper integration with the United States is profoundly contrary to Canada’s long-term interests. Our interests would best be served by reducing our reliance on the American economy and ending our deference to the United States government. We can do this both by pursuing an independent and non-aligned foreign policy, enhancing our trade relations with other stable, functioning democracies and, most importantly, by investing massively in our capacity to produce domestically the goods and services upon which the well-being of Canadians depends.

 

and with this too:

The American political establishment’s obsession with austerity cannot be reconciled with voter preferences. Polls consistently show little public support for reductions in federal spending and majority support for increased spending on education, infrastructure, the environment and healthcare.

Lascaris is very disciplined. His focus for this article was decoupling from the US but the above applies here too. While we may not being going to the extremes of the US all three main parties do not reflect the will of the rank and file including elected MPs nor the will of the people. 

The most obvious example is pharmacare. 

I would still argue that the US is a democracy. If the people fail to exert their power in a democracy it doesn't mean that it isn't one. 

What we have in Canada and the US is democratic oligarchies. We have voluntarily decided that rich people know best, or at any rate have accepted it. We aren't forced to. We can start new political parties or take over existing ones. That we don't do it doesn't mean it isn't a democracy. 

Our soma is limitless entertainment and comfortable lifestyles for the majority.  It makes it difficult for the left to convince people that radical change is a good idea. One in the hand is worth two in the bush. 

Democratic oligarchies. Now that is one super oxymoron. I love how you think our manipulative oligarchy, that owns most of the economy including all the media, have no responsibility for their actions. It sounds to me a lot like saying I have no respect for any woman who stays with an abusive man, they should just leave and if they don't its their own fault not the man's. After all we live in a democratic and equal society where men and women have the same rights.

Where we fundamentally disagree is that you think that Canadian people have agency in our political system. I think our system was designed to allow the business leaders in 1867 to completely control the government. The government and the oligarchy from the era were inseparable.  The system is still working as designed.

NDP leaders have always been likeable and popular underdogs going back to Tommy Douglas, David Lewis, Ed Broadbent, Audrey McLaughlin, Alexa McDonough, and Jack Layton. But they have been seldom considered to be the best candidate for prime minister. Mulcair was a not so popular overdog. Even now Justin Trudeau isn't popular but he is considered to be the best candidate to be prime minister.

I think Lascaris's political career will provide us with a good study of how Canadian politics actually works.

What are you saying? That Lascaris can't win, or that if he did he would be unable to make changes?

JKR wrote:

NDP leaders have always been likeable and popular underdogs going back to Tommy Douglas, David Lewis, Ed Broadbent, Audrey McLaughlin, Alexa McDonough, and Jack Layton. But they have been seldom considered to be the best candidate for prime minister. Mulcair was a not so popular overdog. Even now Justin Trudeau isn't popular but he is considered to be the best candidate to be prime minister.

I think Lascaris's political career will provide us with a good study of how Canadian politics actually works.

If nothing changes dramatically then Lascaris doesn't have a hope in hell of ever being PM.

Luck is when preparation meets opportunity. Even though we can't see a path clear to electing someone like Lascaris if we don't prepare we won't be ready if an opportunity arises. Occupy did some good but it was primarily akin to a dog catching a car.

Kropotkin, you mentioned the climate disasters in BC not bringing people into the streets. Things aren't bad enough yet and a strong enough leader hasn't arisen yet.

There is a lag of 30 to 40 years between the polluting and the impact. Over the past 30 to 40 years we have burn ever increasing amounts every year. Climate change doesn't happen linearly so we could have some years with a bit less impact but overall, even just over 5 years, or certainly ten, we will see disasters larger than anything we have seen so far. You think this year was bad? We ain't seen nothing yet.

If we can get someone on the national stage who is charismatic and communicates in plain language, if/when a moment comes when people are willing to revolt there will be someone available that can lead.

Everything that has been accomplished so far is a waste of time if we don't accelerate transition. It's a drop in the bucket. But as preparation, the drop is important.

That's right, JKR. And if we had had proportional representation (which Pondering has loudly opposed) we would have had an eco-socialist party in parliament (which Pondering loudly supports) many years ago.

Quebec politics cannot be replicated in other provinces because nationalism is not a dividing issue anywhere else. Lascaris is nothing but hot air until he at least wins a seat in the House. Pondering keeps saying Canadians need to do something but her white knight is based in Montreal so the ball is in the people of Montreal's hands to get this man into parliament. That is the starting point and if he can't win a seat at home then why would anyone in the rest of the country jump on his band wagon. Frankly as a BC'er I am tired of Eastern based politicians migrating to seats were socialists can get elected so I hope he doesn't try that one.

Burnaby has an Ottawa politician for an MP instead of a strong and vocal local advocate like they used to have. I think the fact that Singh had to parachute into a safe riding because he could not win a seat at home in Ontario is one of the reasons he is not catching on. His move was purely motivated by personal political considerations not anything to do with representing the people of Burnaby. Burnaby is at the epicenter of the TMX battle and he is missing in action.

Why would Lascaris need a seat? Paul didn't have a seat. Assuming Lascaris wins the leadership he will have a voice on the national stage. 

In Quebec, the Quiet Revolution was the spark not just nationalism. Of course the reason would be different for Canada. It doesn't have to be the same. It just has to be equally compelling. 

The grand majority of people under 40 are freaked out about climate change and even people over 40 are afraid if they have children.  My daughter matters to me. Many people don't bother voting because they don't think it makes any difference, especially young people. 

Lascaris would be endorsed by Greta Thunberg, the Extinction Rebellion, David Suzuki, probably all social and environmental groups and indigenous groups. Just winning the leadership of the party would put him on international news.

I'm not claiming the Green Party would win if Lascaris were leader but he would gather at least as much support as May did and probably much more. 

I would have no problem at all if he parachuted into whichever seat gave him the best chance on winning. I wouldn't care if he cheated to win because the deck is stacked heavily against progressives. 

The Conservatives are in big trouble. They have to turn to attempted gerrymandering, dishonest robocalls and dog-whistling to racists and even all that is no longer enough to win. They had no choice but to go anti-vaccine-mandate even though they knew the majority of Canadians support them. 

Future players that could win are the Liberals and NDP. 

The NDP almost won in 2015 under Mulcair. Voters were swinging between the Liberals and NDP, whichever they thought were best placed to beat the Conservatives. The majority of Canadians are actively anti-Conservative and only becoming more so. In the unlikely event that the Conservatives came even close to winning voters would flock to whichever party is more likely to beat them. 

Polls all indicate that the NDP has a broad potential voter pool and the NDP is barely left of the Liberals in non-conservative people's minds. The Conservatives actually want the NDP to be strong because it's the only way the Conservatives were able to win. The Conservatives will keep their guns on the Liberals and pray.

I don't see the NDP taking the Liberals out before  2025/26. Trudeau will be hitting the 10 mark. There could be a leadership change then to freshen the party's face, or not. Either way I think they are pretty set to win the 25/26 election but the NDP could take it especially if  Trudeau remains Liberal leader but it's a longshot. I think it depends on the strength of the Conservatives. 

That brings us to 2028/30 after another 5 to 8 years of breaking storm records we just made. If the Liberals (not the NDP) win in 24/25 then by 2030 the Liberals will have been in power for 15 years. They will definitely have a new leader by then so they could still win but the NDP would have a good chance of beating them. 

The NDP could win in 2024/25 especially if Trudeau remains leader. Just as voters swarmed to the NDP in 2015 they could do so again in 2025, but instead of running against the new o so progressive Trudeau after a decade of Harper, they will be facing a party that had been in power for 15 years. 

If Lascaris runs for and wins the Green leadership, he won't seriously impact the 24/25 election. The soonest he could become PM would be 28/30.

The 28/30 election could be a doozy with four parties in the running. The Conservatives keeping their 30% or so, voters motivated to keep Conservatives out would be choosing between the Liberals, the NDP and hopefully the Greens under Lascaris. 

Be it as that may be it doesn't look like it will be changing anytime soon. We have to try to gain power within the system we have rather than hoping someday PR wll come. 

NDPP wrote:

Perfect. And Hill+Knowlton can advise both of them.

You mean you won't?

Will 3 stars appear in the sky as an omen of Lascaris's ascendancy? Sounds like we have a very top-down system!

We do have a very top down system. Cabinet ministers don't even get to talk to Trudeau. The country is run out of the PMO.

The people of other countries and other times managed to revolt. The people of the French revolution didn't sit home and say "oh well, no point in trying, not enough support, we'll just get killed. Might as well stay home and eat cake." 

I didn't see a star appearing for Trump.

 

Trudeau may be arrogant but he's no Louis XVI

Many ancient philosophers believed that political systems tend to degenerate toward tyranny and authoritarianism. Maybe that's the only way a system can go through a cycle that causes a catastrophe that requires the system to regenerate itself?

Pondering wrote:

Why would Lascaris need a seat? Paul didn't have a seat.

Paul not winning a seat was one of the things that became fatal to her leadership. Party leaders are expected to win seats if they want to have any long-term influence in Parliament or across the country.

If Lascaris (or whoever the next Green leader is) wants to have influence, winning a seat will be important.

Debater wrote:

Pondering wrote:

<p>Why would Lascaris need a seat? Paul didn't have a seat.

Paul not winning a seat was one of the things that became fatal to her leadership.  Party leaders are expected to win seats if they want to have any long-term influence in Parliament or across the country.

If Lascaris (or whoever the next Green leader is) wants to have influence, winning a seat will be important.

Depends on what kind of influence you are talking about. With three seats the Green party didn't have any influence. 

Attention and inspiration not influence is the goal. "Influence" is too little too late. Incremental change will not work. 

https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/global_oil.php#:~:text=We%20for....
 We forecast that global consumption of petroleum and liquid fuels will average 96.9 million b/d for all of 2021, which is a 5.1 million b/d increase from 2020. We forecast that global consumption of petroleum and liquid fuels will increase by 3.5 million b/d in 2022 to average 100.5 million b/d.

To say that this is unsustainable is literally the understatement of the century. We can now divide people by a single criteria. Those who know we are far beyond the point when we needed to react and those who are still thinking along the lines of balancing the economy and the environment and selling oil to fund the transition. 

Very few if any along that divide can be persuaded to think otherwise. That time is over. Now it is about generations and giving people a reason to vote. 

What if 94% of eligible voters between 18 and 50 voted? I imagine that would have a huge impact on who gets elected. 

93.52% of Quebecers voted in the 1995 referendum. Give people an important reason to vote and they will come. 

Lascaris has not yet declared his intention to run but if he does win the leadership it will be international news. He would have the instant endorsement of every environmental organization in the world. Greta Thunberg would champion him.

We know effects of climate change are speeding up. A decade from now BC will hope it has a mild weather year like 2021/22. 

I am by no means predicting that there will definitely be an awaking moment but I think it is the world's best hope. I hope that the moment will come when people will see how utterly betrayed they have been by neoliberal good cops and bad cops. 

If and when that moment occurs a revolutionary leader will emerge on the right or the left. If the left has no one to suggest and no plans as occurred with Occupy then we are screwed. 

 

 

Debater wrote:

Pondering wrote:

Debater wrote:

Pondering wrote:

<p>Why would Lascaris need a seat? Paul didn't have a seat.

Paul not winning a seat was one of the things that became fatal to her leadership.  Party leaders are expected to win seats if they want to have any long-term influence in Parliament or across the country.

If Lascaris (or whoever the next Green leader is) wants to have influence, winning a seat will be important.

Depends on what kind of influence you are talking about. With three seats the Green party didn't have any influence. 

Attention and inspiration not influence is the goal. "Influence" is too little too late. Incremental change will not work. 

https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/global_oil.php#:~:text=We%20for....
 We forecast that global consumption of petroleum and liquid fuels will average 96.9 million b/d for all of 2021, which is a 5.1 million b/d increase from 2020. We forecast that global consumption of petroleum and liquid fuels will increase by 3.5 million b/d in 2022 to average 100.5 million b/d.

To say that this is unsustainable is literally the understatement of the century. We can now divide people by a single criteria. Those who know we are far beyond the point when we needed to react and those who are still thinking along the lines of balancing the economy and the environment and selling oil to fund the transition. 

Very few if any along that divide can be persuaded to think otherwise. That time is over. Now it is about generations and giving people a reason to vote. 

What if 94% of eligible voters between 18 and 50 voted? I imagine that would have a huge impact on who gets elected. 

93.52% of Quebecers voted in the 1995 referendum. Give people an important reason to vote and they will come. 

Lascaris has not yet declared his intention to run but if he does win the leadership it will be international news. He would have the instant endorsement of every environmental organization in the world. Greta Thunberg would champion him.

We know effects of climate change are speeding up. A decade from now BC will hope it has a mild weather year like 2021/22. 

I am by no means predicting that there will definitely be an awaking moment but I think it is the world's best hope. I hope that the moment will come when people will see how utterly betrayed they have been by neoliberal good cops and bad cops. 

If and when that moment occurs a revolutionary leader will emerge on the right or the left. If the left has no one to suggest and no plans as occurred with Occupy then we are screwed. 

 

 

By "influence" I was referring more to a leader's influence within their own party, although it's also important if the leader wants to have some role in Parliament or within Canadian politics as a whole.

But it starts by having influence within the leader's own party. If a leader wants to hold onto their leadership long-term, they are usually expected to win a seat. Elizabeth May tried to do this in Central Nova and in London North Centre and was eventually successful the 3rd time in Saanich-Gulf Islands. Had she not won on her 3rd try, it may have weakened her influence in the Green Party and hurt her position as Green Leader.

It was also an important test of leadership for Jagmeet Singh. Singh took a while to decide whether to run in Ontario and then decided on Burnaby South in British Columbia. By winning the by-election in B.C. he was able to secure his position as NDP Leader, which had become a question mark by that time. Had he not done so, he may have had to step down as NDP Leader.

Paul's failure to win a seat in Toronto Centre (and to finish in a very low 4th place) was the final blow to her leadership at the end of the 2021 Election. It made it untenable for her to continue as leader.

That, and she is probably the only party leader in Canadian history who seemed to actually WANT one of her party's MPs- Paul Manly- to be defeated for re-election, given that she refused to disassociate herself from the aide who made it clear that defeating Manly was his primary objective as a GPC staffer.

If Annamie Paul is remembered by history at all, she will be remembered as the most toxic destructive party leader in Canadian history.

 If Lascaris wins it would likely mean tons of members quiting the party. Elizabeth May would definitely quit. Centrists or NDP style leftists will not be won over. If Lascaris were to win the leadership he would gain influence through ecosocialists joining the party, or not. Young people voting, or not, in massive numbers. If they don't exist in massive numbers then winning a seat is pointless. 

The support of people like Greta Thunberg is far more important. 

Roman philosopher Seneca once said, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” 

Opportunity may not come but I think that it will. There is a chance of generational revolution. Conservatives have long lamented leaving generations to come with our debts to pay but the largest debt we are leaving behind by far is planetary devastation. 

In my view there will be a clear generational divide between those who will live with the climate devastation and those who will not. It is our job to provide someone they can gather behind. It doesn't have to be someone who already has a political party but it would be really helpful.

Right now there is no one to vote for. 

I love how Pondering's white knight is going to win over enough Canadians to become a parliamentary force capable of effecting real change. I would be happy to see that but frankly I have listened to many indigenous voices saying the same thing and no one is listening. Canadians will not even stop their democratically elected government from continuing the genocide of indigenous people in Western Canada but somehow this white man will arouse everyone to fight for his cause.

White settler solutions to complex global problems will not work.

Where I differ is that I don't believe the far right will win. Democrats and Republicans are approximately 50/50 but only 70% of Republicans support Trump so that is roughly 30% of Americans. 70% of Americans do not support Trump.

Both south of us and in Canada the Conservatives have tried gerrymandering and robocalls and spending above the official limit. Once parties or groups can no longer win power democratically they resort to other methods. That is what we are seeing now. These are the beginning of the death throes of social or cultural conservatism. 

They are stronger in the US than in Canada but despite having stacked the Supreme Court with Republicans they will still lose the war against social liberalism. Overturning Roe vs. Wade would set a bunch of states back but not all of them. 

That isn't to say that neoliberalism has lost. Quite the contrary. The Liberals are so neo-liberal there isn't enough space for the Conservatives to be much farther right without alienating swing voters. Meanwhile, O'Toole is advocating for the unvaccinated to give part of his base a reason to support him. He is in danger of losing the leadership. 

Immigration into the US and Canada are going to continue and they will alter the political landscape. 

Pondering your numbers started with 50/50 but only two thirds of eligible voters voted so it starts at 33 to 33. If only 70% of the people who voted for the OGP were Trumpites that means his support is less than a quarter of the eligible voting population.

The US civil war is not going to be fought by the Dems against the OGP, it is going to fought between rival factions inside the US security state with militias engaging in street patrols to control the black masses since they might get the idea that a revolution is a better idea than a fascist coup. Trump's Presidency with rival agencies attacking and supporting him highlighted that the deep security state in the US is not being centrally controlled and it is anyone's guess who the real power brokers are inside the 17 or more different armed police/security agencies.

kropotkin1951 wrote:

Pondering your numbers started with 50/50 but only two thirds of eligible voters voted so it starts at 33 to 33. If only 70% of the people who voted for the OGP were Trumpites that means his support is less than a quarter of the eligible voting population.

The US civil war is not going to be fought by the Dems against the OGP, it is going to fought between rival factions inside the US security state with militias engaging in street patrols to control the black masses since they might get the idea that a revolution is a better idea than a fascist coup. Trump's Presidency with rival agencies attacking and supporting him highlighted that the deep security state in the US is not being centrally controlled and it is anyone's guess who the real power brokers are inside the 17 or more different armed police/security agencies.

The coup failed. Those willing to violently overthrow democracy are a minority within the security agencies. They are losing power not gaining it.

Their foes are not "blacks". Their foes are everyone who wants to live in a democracy. The Jan 6 rioters were not pardoned by Trump and they are seeing jail time and losing their jobs. That will not inspire them to rise up in greater numbers.

Business is getting desperate for more immigrants which both the US and Canada are heavily dependent on to save our economies.

This type of change happens relatively slowly but it is happening faster in Canada. Fully 20% of our population was not born in Canada. That's huge and it's just first generation.

Biden will be replaced before the next election. The Republicans will lose again.

The only question in my mind for the next election in Canada is if the Liberals or NDP take power with the Liberals having the edge for another minority government. The NDP seems determined to win by staying quiet and becoming the natural alternative to the Liberals. I assume at least some thinkers in the NDP realize that the federal conservatives are falling apart moving the NDP up in the ranks.