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Thursday, March 24, 2011

Jack Layton's NDP: 9-11 conspiracies and internecine conflict

In a sense, Jack Layton is Canada's Willy Loman, the frustrated salesman from Arthur Miller's most famous play. He may be liked, but not well-liked enough for Canadians to seriously consider giving Layton and the NDP any chance of being the top party in a government.  There's good reason for this.

The NDP is a dysfunctional party made of varied and strange components, but in essence can be broken down to two major factions, the radicals and the pragmatists. These factions are personified by Layton's two deputy leaders, Libby Davies and Thomas Mulcair. Davies represents a Vancouver riding with one of the highest poverty and drug-addiction rates in the country. Her radical faction includes a Socialist Caucus that openly admires Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and has been involved in demonstrations where speakers have called for violent revolution in Canada. They have other anti-capitalist and anti-globalization advocates playing ideological guides for the movement in the informally NDP-affiliated think tank, The Council of Canadians, headed by activist Maude Barlow. The radicals also have members like Windsor MP Joe Comartin who recently acted as a sycophantic stage prop for British fanatic George Galloway at a rally at the York Region Islamic Society.

The New Democrats' sane, social democratic faction represented by pragmatists like Foreign Affairs Critic, Thomas Mulcair, has been trying to keep a lid on the radicals. Mulcair, MP for the Outremont riding in Quebec, knows the overwhelming majority of the public would be alienated were they to hear about the direction the NDP radicals want to take Canada.

Never was this internecine conflict more apparent than when Davies' extremist views about Israel were inadvertently exposed in a YouTube interview in June 2010. In it she expressed support for the boycott, sanctions and divestment campaign targeting Canada's mid-east ally, and she made statements suggesting she questioned Israel's validity as a country.

The exposure of Davies' views couldn't have come at a worse time for the NDP. Jack Layton had both the Conservatives and the Liberals on the ropes with embarrassing questions and attacks over their deal to conceal parts of the Afghan mission files. The information in them, which covered a period that spanned Liberal and Conservative governments, was potentially damaging to both parties. The NDP was revelling in the moral superiority given to them by the agreement of Harper and Ignatieff's parties to suppress the release of the Afghan documents.

Both the governing Tories and the Liberals immediately pounced on Davies' blunder. Harper and Bob Rae were part of a chorus calling for Layton to fire her. And rather than exploiting his opponents' vulnerability, Layton was now spending all his time doing damage control because of Davies. Appearances on TV to distance himself and the party from Davies' statements and a personal apology to the Israeli ambassador became Layton's unwanted priorities for the end of last summer's parliamentary session.

Layton and Mulcair told Davies, in no uncertain terms, to keep her mouth shut about Israel and anything that could drag the party into more unwelcome controversy.

But Davies' wasn't fired as deputy leader for a clear reason. She is the mother figure to the radical element in the NDP who, though a minority, punch well above their weight in the party when it comes to activism and organizing. Diminishing Davies' role would have been taken badly by a critical if potentially humiliating component of the party.

Now that the country has been launched into an election campaign, there are still question of how damaging new revelations about Davies and her faction will be to Layton.

There is a convergence of 9-11 conspiracy theorists and anti-Israel fanaticism in the deranged fringes of society.  Canadians may be somewhat more sceptical about Layton's judgement when they hear that one of his deputy leaders has espoused 9-11 conspiracy theories as well as taking stridently anti-Israel positions.



Generally ignored at the time, Libby Davies introduced a 9-11 conspiracy petition into parliament in 2008. One thing to consider is that it is typically unheard of for an MP to introduce a petition to parliament if they disagree with its premise. For example, Davies isn't going to introduce a petition requesting that abortion be re-criminalized or that immigration numbers be reduced.

But even then, there's a pro forma means by which an MP will introduce a petition to parliament which gives them plausible deniability. They say they're introducing it on behalf of constituents and then read the petition verbatim.

Davies doesn't just introduce the 9-11 conspiracy petition in the routine manner. It was signed by only 500 delusional oddballs scattered across this nation of 35 million and she doesn't read it verbatim. She summarizes it and presents it as if it contains facts to which Canada's Parliament must be alerted and act upon.

Davies' own words introducing the petition are:

"It draws the attention to the House of the following, that scientific and eyewitness evidence shows that the 9-11 Commission Report is a fruadulent document and that elements within the US government were complicit in the murder of thousands of people on 9-11, 2001. This event, the petition points out, brought Canada into the so-called War on Terror that has changed the domestic and foreign policies for the worse, and will have negative consequences for Canada."

Layton is trying to play a difficult balancing act between his party's factions. But by keeping Davies prominent in order not to alienate the NDP's most ferverent activists, Layton risks alienating the rest of Canada's voters and calling his judgement into disrepute.

UPDATE MAY 5:  Thomas Mulcair just proved me wrong about one thing - evidently there is no rational wing in the NDP.

13 comments:

Tweety58 said...

How does this party of flakes even get one member elected?Are they all from Toronto and Vancouver?The MP for my part of Niagara is NDP and a nice guy but he is toast as he changed his vote on the demise of the Gun Registry and everyone I know has guns and hunts in tis part of Ontari-ari-ari-o.Also we lost all our heavy industry and ergo no more unions.
Canada as a whole would have to be a nation of meth heads to allow this party a whiff of power and Iggy,Jack and the French Commie Traitor had better not even CONSIDER a coalition or we'll be after them like the villagers were after Dr Frankenstein.

Richard K said...

Yikes! Gun totin' angry villagers in Ontario's wine basin! Nobody wants to see that happen! Nothing mixes worse than anger, firearms, and Henry of Pelham chardonnay!

John Ball said...

Actually, the official story of 911 is the biggest conspiracy theory ever. Scattering around words like "nutballs" and mixing it in with some classic whining about being "anti-Israeli" shows that you are the actual "conspiracy theorist". I could deconstruct this drivel further but it has been a million times before.

Richard K said...

I'm sure John. Let me know when your medication kicks in.

Anonymous said...

John Ball said...
"Actually, the official story of 911 is the biggest conspiracy theory ever. Scattering around words like "nutballs" and mixing it in with some classic whining about being "anti-Israeli" shows that you are the actual "conspiracy theorist". I could deconstruct this drivel further but it has been a million times before."

Actually, 911 is the biggest conspiracy theory ever thanks to the Internet and drivel like Zetigeist. If you look at the points of it, Dan Brown had more legitimate truth in Di Vinci code than the 911 conipracy theorists have combine. Also if you break down the numbers I am sure you will find a lot of correlation between 911 truthers and anti-Israeli, or to be more precise anti-Jewish, crowd. Don't forget the core of the 911 conspiracy is based on the globalist agenda consipracy which is actually based on the same old anti Jewish conpiracies that have been told for centuries.

Anonymous said...

And Hitler didn't only want to exterminate Jews... People do forget he also wanted to exterminate the Freemasons too, especially if he could get his hands on Great-Britain.

So really, what is the conspiracy theory... except a recycling of Mein Kampf general ideas? Same as the loonies who believe in them in the Islamic world have never read Shakespeare, but Hitler is still a best-selling author. They feed off each others, always believing in the cause, the conspiracy... It was the same with WW1. In case you haven't heard, Germany lost WW1 because of the Jews... probably should open a new investigation into this too!

Unknown said...

My God, the woman's English, say no more.

Alba Gu Brath

Anonymous said...

Even the people who WROTE the 9/11 commission report have said it's bullshit.

Senator Max Cleland, resigned from the 9/11 Commission after calling it a “national scandal”.

Commissioner Tim Roemer, stated that Commission members were considering a criminal probe of false statements. As quoted, “We were extremely frustrated with the false statements we were getting".

9/11 Commissioner Bob Kerry said “There are ample reasons to suspect that there may be some alternative to what we outlined in our version”

Why did NORAD stand down? Multiple planes were hijacked, but NORAD did nothing. The US air defense system failed to follow standard procedures for responding to diverted passenger flights. Combine that with Norman Mineta who witnessed Cheney issuing stand down orders: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGI5BmNd7AE

Building 7 was not hit by an airplane, but it fell at free fall speed (looking exactly like a controlled demolition), but the official story claims no explosives were used and in fact largely ignores this smoking gun. Add the fact that the mainstream media reported the building had collapsed BEFORE it happened.

I could go on, but I've already made a much stronger case than you have. There is no legitimate explanation why NORAD stood down during 4 hijackings and how on the same day 3 steel skyscrapers collapse at freefall speed due to "fire" (that IS the official story), particularly when 1 was not hit by a plane... for the 1st 2nd and 3rd time in recorded history all in 1 day.

Everything I have posted is truth, I have referenced the official story as we are supposed to believe and referenced numerous quotes and official government procedure...none of this is speculation, look it up for yourself, it's all documented.

Richard K said...

Yeah, you're not crazy at all. I'm sure the mainstream media were in on the conspiracy and got instructions to report on the building collapsing before it happened. It couldn't possibly have been an error by a couple of reporters amid all the confusion that day.

All flights were grounded once they knew what was going on. It was a hijacking. NORAD should have stared shooting down civillian airliners in case one of them was being hijacked..?

And you people wonder why no one takes you seriously?

Anonymous said...

actually the journalists are given a fact sheet by the gov't that they're meant to adhere to when reporting the news. aka... we only hear what the gov't wants us to. unless we seek out alternative news, aka (in your opinion) 'conspiracy theorist quacks.' why don't you all wrap that warm fuzzy security blanket a bit tighter?

Sooke said...

Benjamin Franklin said "Three can keep a secret - if two of them are dead".

Anonymous said...

So much for the reality based wing:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/05/04/pol-mulcair-osama.html

Richard K said...

I have to admit, Mulcair's bin Laden conspiracy comments have just proved there's no such thing as a rational wing of the NDP.