i think what's more relevant is his citing of tony blair as a model to emulate - because blair largely adopted thatcherism. and would probably be found guilty of war crimes, too, i might add, should he be tried.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/tom-mulcair-defends-praise-for-margaret-thatcher-s-winds-of-liberty-and-liberalism-1.3196265

Jessica Murray
@Björga  the reason i pointed this out is that it doesn't mention tony blair. some off-handed comment about thatcher is mindless gotcha politics. but, his elevation of blair to a role model to emulate is pretty real.

that's great as an election promise and everything for voters that are sort of clueless on the topic, but every study ever done has indicated that putting more cops on the street doesn't reduce crime, it just puts more people in jail. it's the "disincentivize" canard based on homo economicus that has been thoroughly debunked over and over again.

it's kind of sad that i'm sitting here criticizing the ndp for not understanding crime prevention, and not focusing on root causes. but, i understand that people have warped perceptions, and there's an election going on. what i want to hear - and what more educated members of the affected communities are going to want to hear - is that in addition to the pointless policing increase, there will be funding for crime *prevention* in the form of social programs.

a few years ago, i'd take that for granted. nowadays, i think that needs to be articulated, so i'm not left thinking that they're pushing the same stupid, failed policies that don't work.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/tom-mulcair-promises-250m-for-2-500-new-police-officers-1.3196461

mulcair is on record more than once clarifying that his plan for the ndp is to emulate the labour party under tony blair.

what's worse is that he's purged the party of it's better mps, which has been the only real hope of the ndp since the liberals walloped them over nafta. they legitimately had quality mps, relative to the limitations of the system. but, they're pretty much all standing down this election, or retired quietly. on top of that, he's been merciless in stamping anything out that deviates from the party line. they removed "socialist" from the party in 2013, but these are the same crappy tactics you continually get from the authoritarian left - party line politics that is intolerant of dissent or free thought, centralized power, cult of leadership....it's actually feeling worse than a cave to capital, it's starting to get a little creepy.

it's to the point where i'm wavering between voting for a bourgeois liberal that happens to be mildly critical of free trade and launching an online campaign to suppress voting. i'm starting to feel that the only thing that's going to get through to the system is non-voting on a serious, large scale. if they were to wake up on election day and see a 25% turnout, it might be the most effective tool at this point.

www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/08/19/cana-a19.html

oh, yeah. then there was the getting caught spying on indians thing, too. brilliant, guys. you really outdid yourselves.

with all this incompetency, it's almost like the president forgot to clear all of the republicans out of the state department or something.

wait..