I just met Jack Layton and joined the NDP party

I've been a card carrying, broken glass Liberal for as long as I've been able to vote.

I was at a campaign function. I got to talk with him for five minutes before things got started, was 10 feet away from him during his speech and got a word with him after.

I'll post a link when it's up.

I first joined in 1969 ... lapsed ... resisted urging to return ... and as we all know, had to buy a party card when I accepted the request to run under the party banner. ;)

It's kinda more fun to be on the inside. Even when one doesn't agree with everything. It's a party, after all, not a comprehensive all-encompassing theory of the universe!

Harper for another four years, which is what an NDP vote means.

...the liberal candidate in my area. If the NDP in your riding has a good shot of winning, go for it! But if they don't, please consider the consequences. Methinks Harper is lining us up for a post-crash economic merger with the states. Fear-mongering? Once upon a time I would have said 'yes', but the way things are playing out, we need to keep Harper on a very, very, very short leash.

I'm convinced that Harper will sell us out to the U.S. even more than Mulroney did, especially if we get a combination of a Harper majority here and a McCain administration in American. What makes it worse is knowing that Harper can do this with only about 35% of the vote.

So absolutely vote strategically. I'm hard-core NDP, but I'm planning to vote for Ralph Goodale.

Winning the election is zero-sum game. The Party with the most seats wins. The party with fewer seats forms the Opposition.

If the Conservatives lose enough seats, they will no longer be in power.

I spent today driving around town planting NDP campaign signs. Guess what.

THERE ARE NO LIBERAL SIGNS. NONE. ABSOLUTELY NONE. NONE. WHAT PART OF NONE DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND.

There is NO LIBERAL CANDIDATE in my riding.

I CANNOT vote Liberal. THERE IS NOBODY TO VOTE FOR.

So, I've chosen to do the second best thing, try to overturn the Conservative candidate by getting a very popular local politician (he's run Provincially and won for decades) elected under the NDP banner.

;)

http://www.jabberwacky.com

Jabberwacky speaks, a libbot replies.

Who made you?
-- Vote liberal.
Labour or libral?
-- Vote liberal.
A candidate is a person who gets money from the rich and votes from the poor to protect them from each other.
-- Vote liberal or you will die.
Yes, everyone will die.
-- Four more years of harper!!!
One more for the road.
-- Vote liberal.
Aren't you running for office?
-- If you vote ndp you are voting for harper.
What do live events have to do with anything?
-- Vote liberal or you will die.
Cripes, how will that happen?


Jabberwacky is nobody's fool.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=4047843&mesg_id=4052253

etc.

Jabberwacky says:

Cripes, how will that happen?
-- Are you really a canadian?
Aren't you?
-- I am but what are you?
No, I can show you myself if you like.
-- Why do you misrepresent the parliamentary system?
I don't like it.
-- So why should we vote liberal?
Maybe it doesn't matter. But what if it does?
-- How can it when there is no liberal to vote for?
Well, think about it for some time.
-- You think about it.
I thought.
-- Have you figured it out yet?
No.



I guess that will have to do us. No other answers being forthcoming.


typo fixed

You are simply ignoring them in your effort to appear clever.

It's not working.

How does a Canadian voter vote for a party which is not running a candidate in his/her constituency?

Your answer is very eagerly awaited.

TrogL wants to know. How can he vote Liberal??

You never know. If you come up with a way, he just might do it. Right now, he's blundering about in the dark. Englighten him. And us. Please.

no choice in your riding between the NDP and Harper, then vote NDP. However I don't know of any riding that doesn't or won't have a Liberal candidate beyond Elizabeth Mays.

Strategic voting on the whole however is very dangerous.

People wanted David Peterson back in, in Ontario, but with a reduced majority as 'punishment' for an early election call.

So some people voted NDP to be 'strategic'. Turns out it was lots and lots of people all being 'clever' at the same time, and we ended up with Bob Rae instead. No one was more surprised than Bob Rae at this turn of events. Polls didn't indicate that ahead of time.

5 years later the backlash against Rae got us Harris.

You have replied to several posts by TrogL on this point. Now go back and try reading them.

And, I recommend, apologize.

And there is no way to guarantee a riding, sorry.

I am genuinely curious.

Do you think Emery is lying?

If he's not lying (which to me, seems unlikely...what reason would he have to lie?) then does that change your opinion of the NDP at all?

thx

Somewhere in his drug-fogged mind he believes this.

I have no idea, I wasn't there.

He's a "libertarian" of the capital-L variety -- a right-winger who makes profits from pot. And an egotistic narcissist of the first water. ;)

Nonetheless, he was the victim of political persecution and I would hope that had he taken his extradition to the SCC (which he did not, as a deal to prevent extradition of his partners), he would have won.

I think the truth here is pretty obvious, if we're going to be honest about it. The NDP party, under Mr. Layton's leadership, did strike this deal. Mr. Layton was on POT TV, which demonstrates he has a relationship with Emery. It would make no sense for Emery to lie about this, and saying he's just too stoned to know what reality is is just avoiding the obvious truth.

Marc Emery and I share a hometown, and he is an old friend of my little brother. Try reading my comment.

Emery is an egomaniac.

What is this deal, anyhow? That Emery would steer his voters to the NDP? So? A "deal" requires the exchange of consideration.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080916/election2008_080916/20080920?s_name=election2008

Emery alleges he and NDP Leader Jack Layton had an agreement to bring Marijuana Party members to the New Democrats. In exchange, Emery claims the NDP said they would continue efforts to decriminalize pot.

Gosh. Did Jack also promise to continue breathing?

Are we supposed to actually believe that the NDP promised to nominate candidates of Marc Emery's choice?

I give up. What was this deal?

That is what they're denying now, correct?

Do you doubt that deal was made? Is it not an NDP position?

Quite obviously the NDP party decided to deny this verbal deal for political reasons. Can you blame them?

Gosh. Did Jack also promise to continue breathing?


Do you doubt that deal was made? Is it not an NDP position?

Have you not answered your own question now?


For your further assistance ...

If there was a Choice party in Canada, and its leader approached the leader of the NDP and offered to encourage her voters to vote NDP, and the leader of the NDP vowed to continue opposing all efforts to interfere in the exercise of women's reproductive rights in Canada ...

Where's the deal?

You might need to consult a lawyer here.

Or maybe just keep a close watch on your wallet.

If I offer to keep posting at DU if you give me $100, will you give me $100?

...the accusation was made that Marc Emery is making up the conversation as he described it.

Layton says it never happened.

The bigger issue is obviously that Layton is lying about that.

I can read the flack on the Liberal Party website too. And I'm still looking for a deal.

http://www.liberal.ca/story_14786_e.aspx

Yesterday in an interview on CTV NewsNet, Mr. Emery repeated his claim that he and his Marijuana Party had a longstanding agreement with Mr. Layton that if he continued to advocate for the legalization of marijuana, the Marijuana Party would bring new members, recruit candidates and play a role in policy development within the NDP:

“I asked {Layton} do you believe anyone should go to jail for growing, selling or having marijuana and he said, ‘No,’ so I made him an offer. I will bring you thousands of new members to the NDP We'll bring qualified candidates. We'll make you more popular. And for the last five years Jack Layton has gotten more popular. We provided candidates in the last three federal elections for the NDP. And it's been a great arrangement for both parties.” (Mark Emery, CTV NewsNet, September 20, 2008)

WHAT ARRANGEMENT?

The the NDP would continue advocating a policy it was already advocating and presumably had no intention of abandoning, and Marc Emery would encourage his pals to give the NDP their money and votes?

So????

The NDP advocates policies that I agree with. I encourage people to give it their money and votes.

I play a role in policy development within the NDP, if I happen to feel like showing up at a riding associatn meeting and voting on resolutions to be submitted at conventions and delegates to convention.

I have made very active attempts in the past to recruit candidates for the party.

Obviously, Jack Layton and I have a secret deal.

Now maybe you could let me know the grounds on which I could claim that Jack has broken the deal. I'm feeling litigious today, and maybe I could get some money out of this by suing ...

Certainly not all of it can be confirmed, but most of it can be:

"more than 3,000 new NDP members and delivered about 150,000 votes…printed 100,000 brochures outlining Layton's position on marijuana…paid $5,000 to buy two tables at a Jack Layton dinner, and donated between $500 and $1,000 to eight different NDP candidates."

So, if Layton told Emery he'd continue to work to decriminalize pot in exchange for his support, that's a deal.

Clearly.

So, if Layton told Emery he'd continue to work to decriminalize pot in exchange for his support, that's a deal.

I'll ask you again: Will you offer me $100 to continue posting at DU? Please! I can always use cash.

If there was no reason to think that the NDP would NOT continue to advocate decriminalizing cannabis possession, was Emery not just a fool, and soon parted from his supporters?

WHY would someone offer someone else something to KEEP DOING what they had no intention of stopping doing???

3,000 members?

Give me a fucking break.

Delivered 150,000 votes?

Give me a really big fucking break. And give Marc Emery's ego a haircut.

Any reason you don't cite your sources?

http://www.liberal.ca/story_14786_e.aspx

Oh look. Norman Spector.

In 2005, Norman Spector noted Mr. Emery said he had signed up “more than 3,000 new NDP members and delivered about 150,000 votes…printed 100,000 brochures outlining Layton's position on marijuana…paid $5,000 to buy two tables at a Jack Layton dinner, and donated between $500 and $1,000 to eight different NDP candidates." (Globe and Mail, August 22, 2005)

I have the advantage here. I've known Norman for 30 years. Not so much recently, but back when he was a hippie journalism professor, many jugs of cheap white wine were emptied. After that he became someone I wouldn't have been seen in public with.

Here's Norman's original copy:

http://members.shaw.ca/nspector3/globe209.htm

Mr. Layton's other caucus supporter, former MP Svend Robinson, is one of Mr. Emery's strongest B.C. supporters. In a recent contribution to the Vancouver Province, Mr. Robinson writes: “It is time we recognized that the most destructive drugs in Canada are legal: alcohol and tobacco. But they have powerful corporate lobbyists working on their behalf.”

This makes Svend a supporter of Marc ... or Marc a supporter of Svend? Am I seeing any substantiation of the statement that Svend is a "supporter" of Marc -- other than, hopefully, opposing his extradition as a violation of our Charter?

Mr. Emery, it turns out, is no slouch in that department. After the Pot TV interview, he says he signed up “more than 3,000 new NDP members and delivered about 150,000 votes . . . printed 100,000 brochures outlining Layton's position on marijuana . . . paid $5,000 to buy two tables at a Jack Layton dinner, and donated between $500 and $1,000 to eight different NDP candidates.”

HE SAYS. So?

You really don't seem to understand this. Emery is one of the biggest egomaniacs to have walked this earth, and really just not a particularly pleasant person.

You come up with anything other than his own self-serving statements in this regard, as quoted by right-wing hack Norman Spector or some Liberal Party flack, and I'll be happy to read them.

not continuing to post on DU.

Marc Emery obviously felt there was a chance the NDP would either take it off their platform, and so he sought assurances from Layton that the NDP would not.

He received those assurances in return for his own pledges, as outlined in my last post above.

It's quite simple, really. Not a strange idea at all.

And regardless of Norman Spector's politics or your personal experience with him, he is a respected journalist.

if you had any basis for saying

Marc Emery obviously felt there was a chance the NDP would either take it off their platform

which you don't appear to have. Or you would have provided it by now.

Marc Emery may have been seeking something -- influence, ego strokes, whatever. He may have done things that he thought would get him what he wanted.

What there is NO basis for saying is that he had any reason to believe that he would get something THAT WOULD NOT ALREADY HAVE HAPPENED, and that he would therefore have been an utter fool to offer "payment" for.

He received those assurances in return for his own pledges, as outlined in my last post above.

God, you just have no decency, do you? Or are you this unable to reason coherently?

He received assurances. You, and he, have NO BASIS for claiming that he received them IN RETURN FOR anything.

I assure you that I will be continuing to breathe, and to post at DU.

Now, you be Marc Emery. What are you going to give me for those assurances?


And regardless of Norman Spector's politics or your personal experience with him, he is a respected journalist.

Do you know anything, or would you just like to pretend you don't?

Spector is a political hack. Remember Bill Bennett at all? Brian Mulroney? Conrad Black?

And Spector provided NO more basis for Emery's claims than you have, in any event.

Just insinuation and innuendo. You make a fine pair.

The fact that he sought those assurances is an obvious basis for me to think that.

Let me answer to your comparison. This will help you understand, I think:

I doesn't matter to me if you leave DU or not, so I would not make any offer to keep you here, obviously. However, if I did care, then I may feel there's a chance you would leave DU...and since I wouldn't want that to happen I may make an offer in return for your assurance that you don't leave. Whether you planned to leave or not, if the offer was lucrative to you then you would accept.

Perfectly logical.

If you are worth your salt you will admit the truth and logic of that, and stop ankle biting me with childish insults.