This is the third installment of our weekly election round-up of the inane, bizarre, humorous and unusually facile in the great show that is mainstream bourgeois politics in the EPIC election of 2015.
1) Old Conservative white guy acts exactly like an old Conservative white guy
At this point I think this fella needs no introduction. And he has likely produced the highlight of the entire election! Mind you...had he been talking about the Harper government, he would have been pretty spot-on.
4) Margaret Thatcher...a model for "making sure that the public gets the best services possible."
So what do you do if you are the leader of a...ummm..."social democratic" party and someone digs up an old quote of you praising that noted leftist Margaret Thatcher? Well if you are Tom Mulcair you double-down of course and try to explain that what you were talking about was "good public administration" and "making sure that the public gets the best services possible".
Because as we all know this was what Thatcherism was all about!
Right?....Right?
5) She had temper tantrums when she was two as well you know!
Despite what she said in her apology, being a teenager at the time she made these comments was, in fact, an excuse!
Are we really going to go down the rabbit hole of digging up mean or foolish shit people said on social media when they were kids and teens?
Because if we are basically no one in the generation coming of age on social media, who is not the most boring person on Earth, is going to be able to run for anything at all.
Thus ends our third look at the Grand Farce. See you next week!
Got any suggestions for next week's round-up...send them to theleftchapter@outlook.com or post them to our Facebook page!
This week is the week where I think it can officially be said that the NDP leadership "jumped the shark" from any pretense at ties with its roots as a social democratic labour party to a straight-up and very open embrace of Blairite centrism and neo-liberal "progressiveism".
The pledge did get some very enthusiastic support however -- from cops!
This, I suppose could simply be written off as continuing a highly dubious legacy started by Jack Layton, had it not been followed by Tom Mulcair actually doubling-down on comments he had made in 2001 praising Margaret Thatcher.
A government should never pretend it can replace the private market. It does not work It didn't work in England. Up until Thatcher's time, that's what they tried, the government stuck its nose everywhere.
As the Huffington Post further noted he said this in the context of complaining that his Parti Quebecois opponents had intervened in the market too much and that Quebec's taxes were too high.
He further said that:
...interventionism is a failure. A government can create the conditions conducive to the creation of jobs… but the best way for a government to create wealth is to let the private market thrive and to get off the back of business men and women.
This, I can safely state, is not a conventionally social democratic viewpoint! In fact, of course, it could easily have been said -- and has been -- by any number of right wing politicians from the Conservatives or Republicans.
However, it was said in 2001.
So, in 2015 did Mulcair choose to say that his views had changed or evolved?
There are certain things that work and others that don't, and it's not surprising that I'm in favour of the things that work...
My No. 1 priority is to get good services to the public. That hasn't changed and that's what that statement was about — making sure that the public gets the best services possible.
But there is an obvious and clear problem with this -- it embraces the extreme and brutal neo-liberal model of Thatcherism, which was totally centered around the gutting and elimination of public services, as the way to make "sure that the public gets the best services possible".
Even by recent standards of NDP and progressive double-think this is a ludicrous, self-contradictory and indefensibly reactionary assertion to make.
This has now become theater of the political absurd. While it has been clear for some time that the NDP leadership was willing to do or say just about anything for a shot at power and to vigorously present itself as totally devoid of any trace of radicalism and as fully embracing of capitalism and its ethos, this crosses a Rubicon to outright celebration of one of the most destructive and vile regimes in the modern political history of the Western democracies.
Given that there is no organized left in the election that is any electoral threat to the ambitions of the NDP, Mulcair clearly can and has made the calculation that he can afford to take his base and left-wingers for granted -- presumably also feeling that given that the party they have so long associated themselves with is so close to power they also will not defect to the Greens who have no chance at power.
But this goes further than simply taking the base for granted. Mulcair is actually and openly thumbing his nose at the leftists and progressives who are lining up to vote for and to, in many cases, continue to defend him.
Tucked away in the 1976 children's reader "Mr. Mugs and The Blue Whale" is a charming little tale of how "grandpa" picks up the grandkids and surprises them with a trip to Toronto's Harbourfront that culminates with a visit to Captain John's seafood restaurant in it original incarnation on the MS Normac.
While just this year the once happening restaurant's second and final home was towed away to be scrapped, after the restaurant itself had fallen on hard times, here you can travel back with grandpa, Curt and Jan to when it was one of Toronto's premier waterfront attractions.
Vintage Cookbook: "Songfest" -- A Cookbook for the Complete Gourmet presented by The Oriana Singers Publication Details: Self-published, 1984
From the mid-1980's this fun little cookbook was printed to raise money for the women's choir The Oriana Singers -- a choir that still exists today.
This book is a perfect example of the fundraising style of cookbook. No nonsense, all-over-the-map in terms of food styles, and full of some really good ideas and recipes.
Today we share a terrific recipe for deep fried artichokes, a classic Cobb Salad recipe, a recipe for broccoli soup and a few other assorted gems.
And you can peruse them while listening to the choir itself!
Delicious and really easy to make, today's recipe looks at a terrific way to use smoked salmon.
This dish works best with spaghetti, spagettini, linguine or fettuccine noodles. We used spaghetti. This recipe uses ingredients for around 500g of pasta.
Prepare the spaghetti according to package instructions to al dente or to taste.
When drained and rinsed, put in a large serving bowl and toss the spaghetti with around 1 1/2 tablespoons of unsalted butter until the butter melts.
Add 2-3 cloves of minced garlic, salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste and oregano or Italian seasoning to taste (I like to use around a tablespoon). Toss thoroughly. Then add 2 tablespoons of Keen's or Coleman's dry mustard powder and toss again.
Finally add one small jar of capers, drained of any liquid, and the smoked salmon.
Use as much smoked salmon as you want, and cut up in chunks or slices of whatever size you like. I like to chop a normal thin cut slice of smoked salmon into about three pieces for this.
Toss in the capers and smoked salmon so they are nicely and evenly distributed. Then add the juice of half a lemon and toss one final time.
We return for the second installment of our weekly election round-up of the inane, bizarre, humorous and unusually facile in the great show that is mainstream bourgeois politics in the EPIC election of 2015. Still over 60 days of this to go....
1) Near...far...wherever you are...the Canadian economy does go on...
2) ALL HAIL WYATT SCOTT MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE...and possible future BC MP...
Ok then.
3) It is also possible that I will be the NFL MVP next year...but seriously...
“It’s possible” to develop and increase production of the oil sands while being serious about greenhouse gas reduction, the NDP leader said.
Sure it is.
Guess this is what happens when a star candidate goes slightly off message and tells the truth on TV...you have get right back out there into "mainstream" denials of climate change reality.
4) Where is the Great Leader's rally? Why would you need to know that?
"Conservative Leader Stephen Harper is making his first visit to Nova Scotia this weekend since the federal election was called, but residents will have to register online to find out the secret location of the event.
Bill Casey, the Liberal candidate for the riding of Cumberland-Colchester, said Harper plans to be in the riding on Sunday to attend a meeting from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.
He said the location of the meeting is "currently a secret" and both residents and the media have to register online to attend. If you register, you get an email saying the location of the event will be revealed 24 to 72 hours before the meeting."
So what is wrong with that?
Anyway, when the rally finally did happen it went off without a hitch as this photo clearly shows:
5) And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm.
"The second day of testimony by Mr. Wright, who resigned from the Prime Minister’s Office in 2013 after the payment came to light, began with the Crown asking the wealthy businessman to elaborate on why he instructed a fellow PMO staffer to tell no one about the $90,000 bank draft.
In response, Mr. Wright cited a book of the New Testament, Matthew, and in particular, Matthew 6, verse 3.
“This is sort of Matthew 6: You should do those things quietly and not let your right hand know what your left is doing,” he told the Ottawa court."
Ya...think about it!
Thus ends our second look at the Grand Farce. See you next week!
Got any suggestions for next week's round-up...send them to theleftchapter@outlook.com or post them to our Facebook page!
