Layton's Curse
Media reports say Tommy Douglas - the greatest Canadian of all time - was the subject of an ongoing RCMP file in the 1960s. They say he was, could have been, wanted to be or was at least curious about becoming a communist. While there really is nothing shocking about this revelation it does throw an ironic spotlight on the current leader of the modern version of the NDP.
Can you imagine the RCMP, CSIS or even another individual investigating Jack Layton for anything? I mean the guy is a squeaky clean, shiny cardboard cut out Osmond of a human being. And what information would any such investigation possibly garner?
Stakeout Report: JL, December 18, 2006
1. Jack awakens from restful sleep. Washes off 8 hour Egyptian mud mask and brushes glittering teeth that plaque is afraid of with bio-friendly tooth paste solution. Kisses Olivia and let's quivering little dog out (or is that the other way arou...nevermind).
2. Jack dresses in neatly-pressed pastel orange track suit and performs 2 hour rigourous physical exercise routine. Jack reads latest edition of Socialist Worker while on StairMaster, hooked up to a Vitamin B12 intravenous pump.
3. Jack enjoys breakfast of fresh fruit, berries of the world and Turkish yoghurt, while practicing messaging for the day. Olivia drills him from flash cards:
Q: Mr. Layton, what is your position on the possibility that the Bloc will use Afghanistan for its own political purposes in the New Year?
A: New Democrats are the other choice. We are not the guys in the middle or over there. We are the other guys. You want choice right? Well, we are a choice.
Ok. ok. I have to stop. I can't go one with this charade of a skit because the truth is that there is absolutely nothing controversial, scary or LEFT about Layton. Everybody loves Jack, in a weird it's-not-clear-whether-his-face-is-real kinda way. All I know is that the NDP had better find a compelling reason for the secret authorities to investigate them if they want to remain a party at all. Otherwise, the closing green and red walls on either side of them will squash them like bugs, only to be scraped off and tossed into the trash can of Canadian irrelevancy.
Can you imagine the RCMP, CSIS or even another individual investigating Jack Layton for anything? I mean the guy is a squeaky clean, shiny cardboard cut out Osmond of a human being. And what information would any such investigation possibly garner?
Stakeout Report: JL, December 18, 2006
1. Jack awakens from restful sleep. Washes off 8 hour Egyptian mud mask and brushes glittering teeth that plaque is afraid of with bio-friendly tooth paste solution. Kisses Olivia and let's quivering little dog out (or is that the other way arou...nevermind).
2. Jack dresses in neatly-pressed pastel orange track suit and performs 2 hour rigourous physical exercise routine. Jack reads latest edition of Socialist Worker while on StairMaster, hooked up to a Vitamin B12 intravenous pump.
3. Jack enjoys breakfast of fresh fruit, berries of the world and Turkish yoghurt, while practicing messaging for the day. Olivia drills him from flash cards:
Q: Mr. Layton, what is your position on the possibility that the Bloc will use Afghanistan for its own political purposes in the New Year?
A: New Democrats are the other choice. We are not the guys in the middle or over there. We are the other guys. You want choice right? Well, we are a choice.
Ok. ok. I have to stop. I can't go one with this charade of a skit because the truth is that there is absolutely nothing controversial, scary or LEFT about Layton. Everybody loves Jack, in a weird it's-not-clear-whether-his-face-is-real kinda way. All I know is that the NDP had better find a compelling reason for the secret authorities to investigate them if they want to remain a party at all. Otherwise, the closing green and red walls on either side of them will squash them like bugs, only to be scraped off and tossed into the trash can of Canadian irrelevancy.
posted by K-Dough at 1:37 PM
26 Comments:
I could see the Mounties being interested in Layton to learn more about his 'stache care techniques.
I quite agree with this: "the NDP had better find a compelling reason for the secret authorities to investigate them." Thumbs up to that!
However, the idea that Tommy Douglas "wanted to be or was at least curious about becoming a communist" in the 1960s is a kind of ridiculous statement. I'm sure the RCMP said such things in their internal documents, and perhaps even believed them, but it says more about the combination of cluelessness and visciousness of the RCMP during the height of the Cold War national security hysteria than about Douglas. And I'm saying this as someone who is not particularly anti-communist, or at least not in any sense easily recognizeable as such by the mainstream, and who thinks that greater cooperation between the social democrats and the communists would've been a good idea back then. But the history of animosity between the parties, and the fact that the CCF/NDP had already decisively won the horrid bloodletting civil war on Canada's left, in many ways by the early '50s and certainly by the late '50s, makes these documents more of a record of the official ideology of "Communist" than anything else.
Scott- you are correct dude- I should have worded it differently. I was trying to impart the idea that everyone in North America was to some degree influenced by Macarthy. It doesn't look like the RCMP really ever took the issue that seriously...
In a perfect world, with high editorial standards, copy editing and time to write as opposed to stream-of-conscious-over-breakfast blogging that sentence would have read:
The RCMP were investigating allegations that Douglas was associating with known Communists, and wanted to determine to what degree Communists and their ideas held sway over a socialist national party leader.
Or something like that.
Don't worry...I wasn't really meaning to criticize what you had written, but rather to criticize the RCMP!
With that mustache, I can't help but wonder if Layton is an RCMP plant.
-Saskboy
c'est tres drole, mon ami. comme toujours.
but beneath it all, there's an interesting thing there, eh? why are socialists no longer scary?
Chucker, socialists aren't scary anymore because their entire campaign communications consist of: "we just want to do what's best for working families. .....we just want to do what's best for working families.....we just want to do what's best for...." Holy fuck Jack, give it a rest.
And Olivia is starting to bug my ass. Every time she makes a clumsy appearance on a radio station I squirm. She seems to be all about the fight...she has nothing compelling to say.
(Yeah, I'm crabby this morning.)
Q: CC asked why are socialists no longer scary?
A: Because the real socialists all ended up falling off the left of the scale, through the hermeneutic vortex of ideology and now they are all neo-kons!
Socialists like Layton are just the leftovers: The hollow men of socialism's glorious (?) past. Just like all those upper middle class autoworkers.
You my friend CC, were once an orange pupae with a hammer and sickle pattern on your spongey chrysalis.
10 bucks says Olivia was the one being bugged by Fantino...
Fantino buggered who?
That's how rumours get started.
RCMP can investigate layton on the basis of whether the video professor guy on TV is his genetically engineered clone or not. They sure do like clones of each other, repetitve and annoying.
Pam/Joanne- I can see the headline now:
Julio Fantina Investigated by Scotland Yard for Having Torrid Anally-focussed Affair with Polynesian Wife of Infamous Communist Dictator and Health Food Black Market War Lord, Jacques Latent.
First, I also would not be surprised to hear that Olivia has received more police attention than Jack.
Second, as to why supposed "socialists" like Jack are no longer scary, I would argue that it is because the party is no longer connected to social movements. Social movements remain scary to police and intelligence services, but due to changes in the NDP, changes in movements, and changes in the overall political environment, the NDP is largely detached from movements. Even it's attachment to labour is weaker than ever, and the part of labour to which it is attached is the part that is least like a movement. But if you look, say, at movement groups like OCAP and No One Is Illegal, where you still find socialists (and anarchists) of the sort that the RCMP and the other components of the Canadian national security state have always spied on and harassed, and who are engaged in radical, autonomous, movement-like activity, they still get all sorts of unwelcome attention from the authorities.
I guess that's what was underlying my support for the statement in the original post that "the NDP had better find a compelling reason for the secret authorities to investigate them" -- without reinvigorated social movements in this country, social movements which are actually threatening to elites, the NDP will continue its passive drift towards a slightly less neoliberal liberalism.
Anyone ever wonder what people will say about the RCMP's present day actions in about 50 years? Will we look back on the "war against terror" and its ensuing suspensions of civil liberties as just as ridiculous as the RCMP spying on Douglas?
On the topic of the NDP and the Greens, I just can't believe the Greens are suckering so many Canadians into believing that they're a progressive party. You tack on a label that's popular in Europe and suddently people think you're a socially progressive alternative. In reality, the Greens are neo-cons in their fiscal policy and pretty traditional when it comes social issues too. Even their environment policies have come under fire from NGOs and research organizations... but that's the message that never makes it out.
Scott- that was exactly what I meant- they need an edge.
re: Even it's attachment to labour is weaker than ever
I've been saying for a while it's because of the gentrification and increasing greediness of big labour. They are no longer fringe organizations protecting downtrodden workers.
They are big, mainstream institutions that have brought big corporations to their knees, by eating up profits. Union members are by and large part of a conservative mid- to upper middle class now.
They have no use for socialist ideology, because now they aer more concerned with paying less tax, consumerism and job security than protecting their brothers.
Diku- that is exactly what I was thinking about this am. To me, there is little difference between the paranoia and panic of Macarthy-era US and current day anti-terrorist insanity. Look at the Arar case.
If 50 years from now, the RCMP look ridiculous for their anti-terror actions, then this will be fantastic. Its better to look ridiculous than to look "bang-on" you know what I mean?
Leather -
I do love the fact that Jackie Boy thinks I don't work and that my family isn't a working family... sure, I make more cash than Shania Twain on an off year, but its still work.
I'm watching Jack's end of session presser right now. What a load of shit. He is still talking about about making real changes two parliaments ago, like he still had any kind of control or political credit in this minority.
He says his priority is to amend the climate change legislation even though there will be absolutely no time because the budget will come out way before anyone has any chance to do that and the government will dissolve.
Here is a excerpt:
Reporter: To what do
you attribute the fact that
you're down in the polls?
Obviously the message is not
getting through on this or
other issues. How much of a challenge do you face and how long is it going to take for you to turn it around? Spring, fall?
Layton: We were lower than this in the polls precisely 12 months ago so polls go up and down. They change as politics
unfolds.
So what we're going to do is
focus on the key issues and
keep trying to deliver results.
I think that's what Canadians want.
Deliver results? Results? What the hell is he talking about?
Clearly, the federal NDP party has grave strategic communications problems.
Any first year poli-sci student can tell you at great length the difference between a Social Democrat and a Stalinist. Shows what total morons were and probably still are heading the Horsemen. As for Jack, well who is threatened by him? While certainly no CPer Tommy did stand for a social movement, something the NDP of today can hardly claim to do, as others have pointed out...
So, where do they need to go from here?
Well, Svend Robinson wanted the NDP to connect with the existing social movements. But this idea got turned down in favor of slickness. Maybe Svend's idea should be dusted off and tried?
You may be right Larry.
They could probably steal a few gems from Svend, so to speak.
Jack and his friends are right now, as we bleak, frantically trying to raise enough funds to fit each eligible voter in the country by Christmas with an ergonomically-friendly hand snow shovel.
It's their way of assuring us it really is winter out there.
Hey Rona, Jack needs to know; do they take Kyoto credits at Crappy Tire?
"Can you imagine the RCMP, CSIS or even another individual investigating Jack Layton for anything?"
Like, perhaps, how he and his wife easily pulled a combined $150,000 wage and managed to get approved for low-income housing?
Anyone ever wonder what people will say about the RCMP's present day actions in about 50 years? Will we look back on the "war against terror" and its ensuing suspensions of civil liberties as just as ridiculous as the RCMP spying on Douglas?
Er, why on earth would it be "ridiculous" that the RCMP would have a watch on Douglas. With benefit of hindsight, they should have had a freaking sniper covering him.
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