Caution: Wisconsin Ahead

Canada's Left needs to build alliances to face the coming storms.

By Ish Theilheimer; Monday, July 11, 2011 - Straight Goods News
http://www.straightgoods.ca/2011/ViewArticle.cfm?Ref=583&Coo...

Summer isn't a time we like to dwell on the worrisome, but we usually do pay attention to which way the wind is blowing. This summer, there's a lot coming our way fast. So before you take off for a bit of R and R, if you haven't yet, consider the winter to come.

Last winter the world witnessed the battle of Wisconsin, with massive protests attempting to stop draconian anti-labour and anti-public service measures brought in by newly-elected hard-shell right-wing Tea Party types in the very home of American progressivism. For the moment, all these protests did was slow down the inevitable, and, with luck, lay the groundwork for organizing new alliances for the dirty fight that lies ahead.

The Right's strategies are clear, coherent and long-term. The Left's, by contrast, are often confused.

Last month, Straight Goods News interviewed Wisconsin organizer Peter Rickman, who laid out a narrative of how the right wing destroyed private-sector unions with trade deals and now has its sights set on the public sector. He sees developments as part of a concerted, long-term strategy. The Left, he explains, needs to realize it is in the war of its life and develop a counter-strategy — before it is exterminated.

Rickman's warning is by no means confined to Wisconsin, the state that drew the most notice in the US due to the size of its protests. Elsewhere, state after state has passed or is passing similar laws that attack workers' rights and unions, while selling off public assets and services to corporate predators.

Currently, the Obama administration is fighting to achieve a compromise budget bill that will enable it to raise the deficit in order to avoid defaulting on loans and throwing the world economy into chaos. Tea Party types in the Republicans cannot accept any sort of compromise that helps Obama at all, regardless of the consequences for the rest of the world. Tea Partiers are demanding cutbacks to the very most essential services.

Just as toxic derivatives spread a deadly cancer through world banking systems, so too, the anti-unionism disease is a global plague. The Greeks are the latest — and most Western — of nations to be dosed with privatizing shock treatment. Little keeps many other European countries from the same fate. Right-wing restructuring will be very tough on ordinary citizens and poor people.

Canadians have no cause to be smug or complacent. In Saskatchewan, birthplace of Medicare, the wildly popular Premier Brad Wall is stripping public servants of human rights and thumbing his nose at international condemnation. It has become terribly difficult for unions there to defend their members or organize due to the obstacles his government has created. Saskatchewan unions are being drained of resources fighting expensive legal battles and paying strike pay.

Toronto, home of the leader of Canada's NDP, elected Mayor Rob Ford, its own version of Archie Bunker, who rode a wave of public controversy about public services to power. Like his counterparts in Wisconsin and Saskatchewan, Ford is set on a path of widespread privatization, and the shutdown of public and social services. Meanwhile Ottawa is planning to turn Lansdowne Park, a potential jewel in the middle of town, into a land developer's paradise through a sole-source contract. In Calgary, P3 land developers are turfing assisted living clients onto the streets for more profitable use of rooms.

On a Calgary note — Canada's Prime Minister, of course, is the former head of Canada's leading right-wing lobby group, the National Citizens' Coalition. Early in his majority government, he used his new powers to send the bluntest possible message to public servants through back-to-work legislation for Air Canada and Canada Post.

The Right's strategies are clear, coherent and long-term. The Left's, by contrast, are often confused. Peter Rickman talked with Straight Goods News about the need for alliances between those affected by the powerful of wealthy corporations and the rich — workers, students, poor people farmers, small business people.

The Right has developed clear tactics and strategies to achieve what they want. The Left needs to do this too.

Summer may not be the time to tackle this work, but it's a good time to think about what needs to happen next. What are the common values and objectives we share that can enable progressives with different interests to work together? Where is the Right vulnerable legally, financially, and in terms of public opinion? How do progressives build on the NDP's new status as Official Opposition and its leading status in federal politics in Quebec? What are the messages and frames we need to adopt to fend off right-wing attacks and win?

Enjoy summer! But don't forget — winter's just around the corner.