The Really Real
REAL STORY

Wannabe Bullies Wearing Yellow Scarves!

Here we are into another week and the Chicken Little Brigade continues its - at best useless and at worst destructive - assault on reason and the New Democratic Party. The Ultimatum Man, Ian Reid, each day has me more convinced that he is working for the success of the BC LIEberal Party. Why else would he day after day try to find new twists to convince the world that due to the mean Jenny Kwan and the “baked dozen” the NDP has doomed itself to another decade or two in the wilderness.

Yesterday he continued his ongoing campaign to aid and abet the LIEberal Party with yet another post accusing everyone who disagrees with his doomsday attitude of “spinning” while assuring his shrinking base of sycophants that his negative nattering is nothing less than the gospel truth. His desperation to convince the pathetic bunch of pessimists that infest his comment threads has extended to deleting comments by those with the temerity to disagree for whatever lame reason he can make up.

Commenter Kevin who patiently tried to explain his position gets deleted for using too many words. Grant G, the Powell River Persuader gets deleted and/or demeaned for being insulting. Yet those who adhere to the Ian Reid, the NDP is dead and Jenny Kwan is the female incarnation of the devil can spew insults in all directions, using how ever many words they need. I’m done commenting there as yesterday I responded directly to questions from both “get it together” and Ian himself, in a succinct manner, and it has since been deleted. I can only assume this is because it was too logical was thus too difficult for the Chicken Little Brigade to discredit. I’ve been deleted or banned from classier blogs than The Real (sic) Story.

Perhaps the most over the top in Ian’s choir is Linda. Might this be the same Linda (who regularly attacks that other enemy of mankind Bill T at his place) with so much time on her hands she can go to THREE different MLA open houses in one day? Even though I’m in the middle of three NDP ridings, I couldn’t even drive to all three of their homes in one day, even if I didn’t stop at any of them – of course I live in the HURTLAND, the region most victimized by the Campbelloid scorched earth policies.

Perhaps I should point out that two of my local MLAs did the honourable thing and resigned their elevated positions - Norm MacDonald to my north and my MLA, who NOW has more local support than before – Katrine Conroy. The third, Michelle Mungall (who had to submit to a gender test to replace Corky - shades of the South African runner) donned a yellowbelly scarf, but I don’t hold that against her, she's a young rooke with less than two years in caucus. In the Kootenays we had issues with many Carole James policies or lack of coherent policies – including the exclusion of potential candidates with the wrong genitalia, preferring the right to choose the best candidate in the eyes of the local members to represent our interests):

Adrian is right about one thing — it is extremely hypocritical for those who viciously attacked and publicly humiliated Carole James to now tell us who are James supporters that we can’t comment or criticize what they’ve done…../snip

This “coup d’etat” has made us the laughing stock of the media and the Liberals.

I would hardly call questioning Carole’s leadership or mildly criticizing a dull substance free speech “vicious attacks.” It appeared to me that Carole and her gang were the folks into trying to “publicly humiliate” people with the childish yellow scarf gambit. And now if anyone is saying you guys (Ian, Kevin, Linda, et. al.) can’t comment or criticize those Carole called “bullies and selfish,” it is pretty clear you ARE NOT paying any attention and certainly not thinking about the work that has to be done to move ahead. Carole realized that rules be damned, she didn’t have (and going so long without any real review didn’t deserve) the support of almost forty percent of the people in her caucus - people CHOSEN by the voters themselves – the same voters who will be helping to decide the next election. There was no “coup d’etat,” Ms. James wasn’t assassinated and it is time start discussing who should lead the party into an election that could come as soon as next spring – and get off of this foolishness that a genuine OMOV selection wouldn’t be honoured by even the “dissidents.” However, winning the leadership isn’t like getting appointed to the Supreme Court – it isn’t a LIFE TIME position.

Because of the deliberate actions of a minority of MLAs, the party is deeply divided and I wonder if the wounds will ever heal. Not only is the caucus divided but the membership is also fractured

The dissidents didn’t divide the party, they were a sign that the party had become divided and didn’t have leadership capable of holding it together through either vision or discipline. When a hockey team is losing, even though the coach and GM neither score goals, nor play defence, they are ones who generally pay the price in the hope that the new “leadership” can get better results from the same players.

Enough with Ian Reid - as he is easy to understand and impossible to reason with. If I had been Carole’s Chief of Staff for part of the last seven years, I would be unhappy as well. I would feel like I had been giving bad, ineffective advice and was a major part of the reason that Carole personally and the NDP as a party had been providing ineffective lacklustre opposition and failing to connect with the voters beyond the diehard committed party faithful who would vote NDP if Robert Pickton was the leader. Then again, if Mr. Reid was a mole for the BC LIEberals, as it would appear, the unhappiness may be only a faux display and the real cause the loss of Carole James, the LIEberal’s not so secret weapon.

Norman Farrell, Attorney at Law (not!)

I'll begin by apologizing to Norm for calling him a nasty name, just above. But, after reading this morning's piece over at Northern Insights, one of my VERY favorite blogs, I am puzzled by his apparent committment to parsing the rules of the New Democratic Party to prove that Jenny Kwan and company are snakes and the NDP is doomed - or the Ian Reid canard without the petulance.

This flight of fancy from Norm caught me by surprise because I consider Norm, along with BC Mary, perhaps the most rational, non-partisan blogger on the local scene. I also consider him one of the most articulate with an uncanny ability to express complex ideas with an amazing degree of clarity.

But it seems to me that Norm must be going to law school in his retirement as he is really getting picayune with his detailed critiques of why the Jenny Kwan wing is wrong based on a detailed analysis of the “Official Rules” of the New Democratic Party. As it is my impression that while he may be a supporter, at least at times of the NDP, he isn’t an actual member of any party. If I remember correctly he even apologized at Northern Insights for voting Liberal in 2001.

To begin with he spouts a lot of nonsense from the recent Mustel Poll showing the Liberals on the way to the promised land and and the poor dippers freefalling into the depths of hell, where they will likely be sent on to an even worse place by Satan himself for their bad, bad, behaviour. I won't even discuss these polls as I consider H.P. Lovecraft, Grimm's Fairy Tales and Mother Goose herself to be more reality based than any so-called poll from Evi Mustel.

But then Norm goes into almost brain liquefying detail, parsing in grand Clintonian style, the NDP Party constitution and about rule number such and such sub-section such and such and why the dissidents should stand in the corner and the party itself take a ten year time out for flaunting this sacred rules.

In a province that has been run into the ground by the Campbell Crime Family for the last decade, this concern with rules seems almost quaint. The government itself breaks the LAW almost daily, if not indeed 24/7, as many of their questionable actions effect British Columbians every waking (and for the homeless, elderly and ill, even while trying to sleep). Cabinet ministers are under investigation for various potentially criminal activity almost constantly and the RCMP refuses to even consider investigating many legitimate complaints from sober well meaning citizens. They have been found guilty of breaking the law in the very courts they so successfully manipulate most of the time and left the tax payers on the hook for not only their defence, but the penalties imposed when they are found guilty of such transactions as illegally tearing up binding legally signed contracts. It is positively embarrassing to have one’s own province sanctioned by UN agencies for trampling on worker’s or human rights in various slimy ways. When it comes to “rules” the only rule for the BC liaRs seems to be – “We will only cheat if we need to, to win - and we only LIE when we Speak.”

Meanwhile, if Carole James had spent as much energy and focus on holding the Campbell forces to account for their routine transgressions as she expended on her critics within her own party questioning the party direction and her leadership, we might not be having this discussion.

Keeping in mind that every single thing from invading Poland to gassing six million Jews was completely LEGAL under the law as it was enshrined in the Third Reich, methinks this harping from many about the "Rules" is a bit disingenuous. As I said above in the section devoted to the Surreal Story of Ian Reid, the dissidents didn't create the rift in the party - they were merely a visible sign that it was there and needed to be addressed. Addressing it next fall when we're buckling down for at least four more years of Liberal abuse under Emperor Falcon or Empress Clark just wasn't going to cut it.

The revolt against James was strictly a powerplay by party operatives and the caucus, an undemocratic coup that disregarded the party's constitution, a condition so fundamental to an egalitarian organization that full recovery will be difficult. How can the next leader or the membership feel comfortable when consent to a common set of rules is lacking

The idea that after a real leadership contest with an honest exchange of ideas the party can't unite behind a freshly chosen leader is pure hogwash worthy of Les(s) Leyne or Bill "not so" Good. Carole James' for all the good she had done was running on a mandate that had frankly run out in the view of too many REAL NDPers and potential NDP voters. Why not say that if Christy Cluck Cluck wins the leadership of the liaR Party, Kevvie Birdbrain and all his supporters will flee to the BC First Party or start calling themselve HarpoCons - or actually call themselves what they really are?

Opinion 250 - More Gloom and Doom

While I was working on this post the Powell River Persuader sent me a link to more nonsense this time from Ben Meisner. The often sensible Meisner picks up the sky is falling ball with so much bafflegab and nonsense I can't even understand him - for example:

It wasn’t her (James-kc), you may remember, who took the approach that the attack on the government record would be the way to grab power from the Liberals in the last election. That advice came from the supposed,”well informed “ who said this was the best tactic to win the approval of the voting public.

She fully understood that she shouldn’t have listened to them following the election, in which her showing was pretty admirable in any event.

The above statement makes me wonder if he was watching the same, May 2009 election, that the rest of us witnessed. The way I remember it Carole and her Krogs were so busy trying to be "nice" and kiss the butt of business that the Liberals were able to carry on their lies about their fiscal prudence, the dismal dark age of the nineties, how they were bringing in a new era (in a good way) in education and health care and they rarely even had to resort to Wally's favorite tape loop - "It's before the courts." Instead the lies were permitted to stand,unchallenged and too many voters were convinced they were lucky to be alive if they had lived in BC during the dreaded nineties under Josef GlenStalin Clark.

It's astounding that Ben Meisner seems to think the NDP don't deserve to form a government because they are (hopefully) sorting out some leadership issues for the election bound to come long before next fall's purported leadership convention, much less in May of 2013.

Maybe Ben doesn't remember the Prince George that was the industrial powerhouse and transportation hub of the northern heartland before a decade of BC Liberal policies reduced it to the unemployment and crime capital of Canada. If we have to suffer four or six more years of Liberal abuse perhaps Prince George could become the Juarez of North America, replacing the real Juarez. Seems like a heavy price to pay for a bit of internal dissension amongst the only party with a prayer of replacing the Campbell Crime Family with nothing more than a new capo.

Of course after four to six years of Liberal pillaging and abandonment of the hurtland, the Prince George resident with the means (a functioning vehicle, gas money and some change) might well want to move to Juarez because at least there it won't ever hit -40C with hydro or fuel too expensive to buy, and there could be jobs at a maquiladora, Prince George being too far from the border of anywhere where people might be able to buy stuff - meaning no maquiladoras for PG.


What I've been trying to avoid saying:

The ranters of doom have finally driven me to the point of expressing something I've been thinking for awhile now, but really didn't want to say, because it it too much like saying something nice about the silver haired prevaricating one. But understandable as it is that neither he nor Ms. James really wanted to step down from their lofty perch as leaders of their parties - I can't escape the fact that Gordo actually was more gracious and less petulant in biting the bullet. While James blamed everybody but herself, calling them selfish bullies and such, Gordo didn't even refer to Wild Bill Bennett, or Blair Leckstrom or the other restive caucus members who forced his hand. Nope, the man more people detest than anyone else in BeeCee mainly said he was stepping down for the good of his party because it was becoming "all about him." That compared to Carole's threats to hold people accountable like schoolchildren right up to the hastily cancelled Sunday afternoon meeting and then still blaming the bullies seemed like Gordo was the one actually accepting some personal responsibility for his position (or the loss of his position).

I know Ian Reid and his ilk don't want to hear that, just as he seems oblivious to his own role as a chief adviser in Carole's ultimate failure to capture the premiership and rescue the province from the LIEberal clutches.

And I'm NOT Ben Meisner, but that is my opinion!