Working against a permanent Conservative majority

This originated as a comment over at Thwap's place, but perhaps I should expand on it a bit.

Call me a hair-splitter if you must, but while certain individual Liberal activists might be open to some new electoral thinking, I wouldn't be so sanguine about the Liberal Party itself.
I understand that they need some time to grieve, to heal and to come to terms with their third-party status, and I'm willing to grant them that time. But I'm not willing to put the hard work we need to do on hold while they do that.
We're facing four years of war, to be fought on many fronts and on many battlefields. If they want to spend their time and energy gazing at their navels and trying to revive a decrepit institution that's past its shelf life, that's up to them, but I've got more important things to do. And that goes for anyone else who's not comfortable with the idea of a permanent Conservative majority.

Initially I wasn't sure I wanted to come across all harsh and everything, but in all honesty, I don't know how I can be any more emphatic about the need for opposition activists, of whatever stripe, to stop flinging poo at each other and focus on the main task. Some of the language I've encountered from  fellow progressive bloggers, many of whom I've respected until now, is simply mind-boggling. You know who you are.

Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold

  


My friends, there's no denying the impact of the past couple of days. The way it stands now, we're going to have to live with a Harper majority for the next four or five years.

And while it's nice to fantasize about the Conservatives doing themselves in by getting too comfortable, or too arrogant, or taking the muzzles off their backbench whackjobs and throwing some red meat to their so-con base, we can't count on that. How we organize to fight this is going to be the subject of several blog posts, and perhaps the strategic focus behind worthwhile Canadian initiatives such as the one currently being organized over at Sixth Estate. Check it out when you can.

But getting organized is also going to mean facing some uncomfortable truths: about the polarization of Canadian politics, about the role of the media, and about the role of the Liberal Party.

Montreal Simon says it even better

Just to reinforce my point about the partisan backbiting.

I note this morning that Simon's got an excellent post addressing some of the same things, but he says it better than I can.  Go and read it now.

He manages, in passing, to highlight a particularly egregious display of Blame Throwing. Keep it up folks. You're just giving the Cons more wood.

While you're at it, check out this piece from Boris over at the Beaver.

Related posts:

• Again: Stop it, all of you. We need to take the long view
• Wow. Just ... wow.
• When Liberals and New Democrats snipe at each other, who wins?
• To my dear Liberal and NDP friends ...

Accountability, Harper-style: Intimidation and mob rule

Anyone who's been talking about "scandal fatigue" just hasn't been paying attention.

At a campaign rally Saturday, Harper's minions whip a partisan crowd into a frenzy in order to drown out Terry Milewski's question.

What are we speaking of, when we speak of democratic infrastructure?

OK, so I was on the Tweeter today, and I was being a bit of a smart-ass (All together now: Really, OB? We're shocked. Shocked!) about the leaders of the three main parties.

Now what's all the fuss about?

"Oh, fiddle de de dee! Don't I even get a chance to take a bath?"

Yes, well. Some of the comments on Thursday's post take me, with more than a little justification, to task for what may have been an excessively facile argument about the slippery and elastic nature of political labels.