A tiny little rant about my centrist/RW co-workers...

[CanuckAmok]

I have to admit that I have been living in a wonderful fantasy world for the past 10 years; I've been in an industry (film/television) which is populated largely by "liberals", and even the more rightwing members of that industry (generally speaking, the transportation department) are at least extremely pro-union (no need to point out the irony...it's lost on them).

But for the past few months, I've been working in the "real world", specifically in the construction industry, on an enormous non-union project.

Every lunch time, my office becomes the common lunch room, and I have to overhear the conversations between several of our employees. Generally speaking, it's the same six of our 18+ aggregate drivers. Most of them are Teamster independent owner/operators, who have benefited from the union's protection.

For those of you not up on BC politics, there's a provincial election coming up, and it's a close race between the incumbant centrist, pro-corporate, anti-labour, anti-social service "Liberal Party" (don't let the name fool you!), and the mildly Leftist NDP.

The NDP were ousted in the last Provincial election, largely due to the poor judgement of the NDP Premier, and what IMO was an intensive smear campaign by the RWQ media (sound familiar), and an insane $600,000 police investigation which unsuccessfully attempted to uncover actionable corruption within the Party.

The guys I work with are complete victims of this media campaign. They have completely forgotten the tremendous surplus the NDP left in the public trust on their way out of office. They've forgotten the advances in health-care reform, in unionism, in outspoken objection to the anti-democratic policies of the Federal Liberal dynasty.

No... what they believe is that the Liberals, who have introduced anti-union legislation, an obscene $6/hr minimum wage, and one of the largest deficits in this province's history, will do nothing but good for this province and this nation.

This in light of the Liberal premier being busted for DUI in Hawaii (visiting on taxpayer money, by the way), patronage up the yin-yang, a drug-dealing scandal literally inside the government's official offices, and an unwravelling federal scandal which may put Watergate to shame (okay, maybe I'm being a little hyperbolic, but it's a mess).

So these guys (who are all approaching retirement age) are going to vote for a party which wants to privatise our resources and social services, slash health-care spending, and emasculate the unions, and run up the deficit even more, for the benefit of corporate welfare.

so, WTF?!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I know I should be more conditioned to these guys, but I just want to beat them to death with a medieval mace. Is that so wrong?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

1. Have you asked them why?

This might be a case of groupthink.

[CanuckAmok]

4. I didn't, but someone else did.

Allow me to quote from the Flintstones:

Wilma: "Really? what was the result?"

Fred: "A fractured collar bone and three cracked ribs."


Not exactly, but as soon as any dissent is levelled, it's shouted-down.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

2. Yes, it is quite wrong.

A flail would be a lot more appropriate.

[mahina]

3. This is THE conversation we should be having...how to win hearts and minds

How do we do it?
I find asking questions helps, what matters to you, etc. But there is never time to really get through it to the point where we really all do agree.
How? Anyone?

[Zuni]

6. Yep. The RW has been so successful selling their nonsense

we need to use their tactics to get our side heard.

[Zuni]

5. Man, most of us have the same problem down here

Too many people are getting sold on the RW BS. I hope the true liberal win the election, so you won't have to deal with RW economics. Maryland, my home state is 2 to 1 democrats v. republicans, but in the 2002 elections, the democratic candidate Kathleen Kennedy Townsend (Robert F. Kennedy's daughter) ran a horrible campaign against what then seemed a moderate Republican, Bob Ehrlich. Well, we are suffering terribly. The Maryland legislature voted to raise the minimum wage 1 dollar an hour, and to make Wal-mart pay penalty taxes for not giving their workers benefits that a company that makes the kind of profits that it does should. Ehrlich vetoed these after the legislature closed for the summer, so now we have to wait 6 months for the legislature to override his vetoes.
But the good news is that Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley, a true liberal and a very good politician, as well as one of the most popular local politicians in the country will undoubtedly defeat Ehrlich in 2006.