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He is gone but the legacy remains. Thus any discrepancy from the government of Israel line on any issue that pertains on Israel is still seen as anti-Semitic. This is why green candidates are caught in this net as it was made this way to stifle dissent both domestically and abroad. There is no room for nuance here and any deviation is seen as a warcrime. Just ask Ben And Jerry.

   

I'm not well-versed in the Middle East conflict, so I can't comment too much on that, but what I'm puzzled by is exactly which political factions the Canadian far-left think we ought to be supporting in Asia, and how they think we should react to terrorist attacks and the rise of Muslim fundamentalists like ISIS and the Taliban.

We've thwarted multiple terror attacks in Canada thanks to police and security forces being tipped off by Muslim imams. If we abolish the police and military, how would the leftists respond to potential bombings or things like the rise of the Taliban overseas? Are social workers or mental health professionals really equipped to deal with people stockpiling massive amounts of guns and explosives?

Conservatives like Preston Manning have repeatedly tried to get the Canadian right to not cede the environment as a political issue to the left. The left has a similar problem when it comes to security and public safety, in that they've pretty much ceded it to the right. In all the left-leaning essays and articles I've read, I've never seen any credible way they'd actually address these things.

   

I'm not going to speak for all leftist but I can surmise two key point here. One is the leftist position which is disorganized at best and has no one person or spokesman to refer to. And two is the position prescribed by the detractors of the left who erect strawman positions never supported by the left but that they repeat so often it becomes a part of the mainstream consciousness.


That said, there is a difference between defund and disband. The left doesn't want APC's and tactical gear issued to cops. You ask the right how much the police budget should be and as the fortunate son song goes the only answer is more, more, more. There has to be a realistic middle ground where we use the right tool for the right job.

The NDP is constantly harassed by their detractors as the anti-military party who wants the army disbanded. They don't, they just don't want the officer corp riddled with unrepentant sex offenders.

Using social workers in scenarios to defuse social issues BEFORE we need to call the cops is what the left is a proponent of. The right see ANY diffusion of responsibilities of the cops as attack on freedom.

This is a trap that the right lays for the left and they do this with the budget as well when the left then goes overboard costing their platform whereas the right can't even be bothered. Again, if it is for the army or the cops the right see no need for a budget and the media and the public at large just takes that without question.

The buck has to stop somewhere.

   

Ben & Jerry are the equivalent of the GQP boycotting Nike or Gilette. Stunt-booking, nothing else. And as Jews they can always go to Israel any time they want. There's nothing to stop them doing so, and the worst thing that would happen to them is that they might get yelled at on the street.

Netanyahu wasn't the origin of the problem. He was just a crappier than usual result of too many political parties being elected to parliament forcing coalition-building that included extremists in order for him to get power. This is something that baffles me completely and always has when some Canadians want representation for the smallest of voices no matter how few votes they get. When that happens at best you'll get the chaos of the Italian system. At worst you get someone like Netanyahu in Israel, giving lots of gravy to tiny extremist parties in order to stay in power and commit his mischief, larceny, and malice. Coalition government is no solution to anything at all. If anything it's one of the crappier things that can happen in a system that's already a mess anyway. And let's face it, pretty much all democracies are a mess because they're supposed to be. It's not like any of the systems were designed for efficiency, or have any iron-clad guarantees built in to them that grift & graft will never happen.

As for Israel, well, whatever. They don't care what we think, they're not going to do what we want, and that's their right to decide. All I know is that if the Palestinians hadn't been so good at blowing up weddings, shopping malls, and packed transit buses during their last intifada then maybe the Israeli left that was willing to deal with them wouldn't have been effectively wiped out in all the elections held since Ariel Sharon became PM. Because that's where a creep like Benjamin Netanyahu really came from, rushed into power after Sharon's death and all entirely thanks to an outraged population seething over the terrorist attacks. The Palestinians finally went a step too far with unrestrained attacks on civilians and they're still paying the price for that decision today.

   

They don’t care what we think?? Please explain anti-bds laws:

   

And that’s the problem with our system no one seems to want the buck to stop. We can’t automatically dismiss an idea because it came from the other side. Some compromises have to be made. Right now it’s unrealistic to give up all plastics it’s in a lot more fabric than you know. Which then takes you into the huge debate and natural fabrics and fur. And yes it’s a thing. There’s a group that wants fur and wool gone. Ignoring the fact that sheep must be sheared and weather. Then you add in the people who want to control crops rated value based on water and processing. Everyone has an opinion. Then there’s fast fashion as a hole thing to go with our throw away society. And yes none of that is political cause no one thinks about fabric when arguing about plastic when it’s probably a huge contributor to micro plastics in our water. Fabric sheds. But what I’m getting at is there are so many facets to any problem that good ideas can’t be dismissed out of hand because it came from “the other side”. We have to ignore the nut jobs and try to cooperate and compromise. It’s the only way we’re going to get somewhere that doesn’t involve death and destruction. We can’t have anything both ways. There should be social workers out with the police. It’s been proven time and again in bodies that they can’t deal with mental illness well. But how that would work I have no idea. Until people start to see that none of this is an all or nothing problem and the solution can’t be all or nothing either.

   

That's not entirely true - there was a policy resolution (04-42-20) at this year's NDP convention to completely abolish the military because "militaries and war are a historic institution with no place in a modern society."

https://www.ndp.ca/sites/default/files/ ... -en-v8.pdf

I think that most everyone here will agree that a strong military will be more necessary than ever in the coming decades, as China's power grows and climate change gets worse, leading to conflict, famines, droughts, mass migrations, etc.

Meanwhile, policy resolution 04-40-20 called on an NDP to freeze defence spending and not buy new ships for the Navy or fighters for the Air Force.

And the LEAP Manifesto, which is supported by many NDP supporters, calls for less defence spending to fund the Green New Deal, although how they think our tiny military budget will make in the dent in the massive cost of the GND is beyond me.

During the Cold War, the NDP (under Broadbent IIRC) wanted to pull Canada out of NATO and declare ourselves neutral like Switzerland. Guess what resolution 04-41-20 was - to pull out of NATO...

Singh said he didn't support either of these resolutions, but who knows how long it will be before the LEAP supporters take over?

So while the entire NDP is not anti-military, they have a strong anti-military bias.

Remember all the grief the CPC got for voting down a resolution to officially recognize climate change? If they deserve flack for that, then the NDP certainly deserves flack for these anti-military policy resolutions.

   

The situation with Israel and Palestine has not changed materially in my time on Earth. Nothing leads me to believe it will change any time soon. Also, I'm not religious and have never been to either place, and what happens there is not that important to me personally.Other than musing on the irony that Israel's stated intentions are to avoid civilian casualties yet manage to inflict a lot of them, and Palestine's stated intentions are to inflict civilian causalities, and manage to inflict almost none, I don't spend a lot of time fretting about it.

   

Again, pulling out of NATO (The Idea Trump touted) is not the same as disbanding the military. These resolutions are used in the same way to defame the NDP the same way Liberal paint O'toole as yet another social conservatives that wants to take away Canadians right to abortion because he will no crack down hard on doctors who have a moral argument not to follow thru on their professional responsibilities.

it's a slippery slope to debate their issues but at least the NDP, to their credit, discuss them in an open political forum.

These wedge issues are all the more important once the party is no longer in the back benches with pea shooters but actually forming government. I am as leery of the social conservatives as I am over the LEAP NDP supporters but if I have to choose between the devil and the witch I have to side with the one that is the more responsible of the two during covid and the conservatives shit the bed over that while the liberals were forced kicking and screaming by the NDP to do the bare minimum.

   

You can't help people who don't want your help and I don't know why we keep trying.

   

Again, read the resolutions - one was to literally:

"THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT an NDP government will commit to phasing out the
Canadian Armed Forces."

That's pretty unambiguous as to the sentiment to military that some NDP supporters have.

That's the very sentiment which will forever prevent me from voting for them. If I have to choose between neglect (Liberals) and disbanding (NDP), the choice is an easy one for me.

   

Trust me, as a citizen of Victoria, BC I am WELL AWARE of the disband military/cop types getting the reigns of power and the fallout from such policies.

That said, are we still selling APC's to Saudi Arabia? Thought so. There HAS to be HARD limits on power and especially the state. We have an armed forces RIFE with sexual predator's and we are the laughing stock of the international community as a result. The HAS to be accountability and neither the Liberals or the CON's have been up to the task. Perhaps the fear of getting shut down and start over IS required. It seems it is the ONLY way to get their attention.

   

Excellent points, and thank you for bringing this up. NDPers never seem to mention their parties' complete disdain for anything military. Probably one of the few things in which the NDP is far worse on than the Liberals.

-J.

   

I don't think any of the parties are going to do much for the military. The Conservative party has a line saying they will aspire to military spending at 2% GDP buried in their platform.

We'll need the military, not just for the current geopolitical changes, but for climate change--flooding, fires.

   

Out of curiosity, and in your opinion, if the Bloc was not an option where would those votes go?

   

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